A Bond Between Siblings
by The Damocles
Summary: Naruto and his sister Himawari were born during the third great ninja war. The day they were born, two tailed beasts were unleashed upon the village. Naruto is kidnapped by Kiri, leaving Himawari to wonder what happened to him since he doesn't remember her at all. Special thanks to Lockdown00 and NarutoKushina for their help. Rated M for language and violence
1. Ch 1 Two Jinchuriki

**Okay here the new story, if you guys want a pairing, give me your ideas, other than that, I don't own Naruto and I never will, that goes for everything I write in this story and any chapters I post and any other stories that have been written by me involving Naruto. Review and criticize if you want.**

 **-TheDamocles**

 **This Chapters Quote: "Only the dead have seen the end of war."-Plato**

* * *

Ch. 1 Two Jinchuriki

Two figures could be seen walking towards the gates of Konoha late at night, one appeared to be female and had her arm wrapped around the neck of the second figure. Both appeared to be small, showing that they weren't all that old, early teens at best. The two also appeared to have been through some sort of massacre, given that the one carrying the girl was covered in a red liquid that smelled of blood.

The other figure however, didn't look like they had taken as a bad of a beating, but she still had bruises and cuts that seemed to be all over her body. But she seemed to be in a lot more pain than her partner. Pain, that only seemed to get worse and worse as they got closer and closer to the Village Hidden In The Leaves.

' _Come on!, we're almost there, just a couple more feet and Kushina-sama will be able to help us. This seal on her is getting worse and worse, and it still doesn't help that we don't know what it's doing. Add to the fact that I'm almost out of chakra, so if we get attacked, we are screwed.'_ The one covered in blood thought as he kept dragging his feet onward toward their home, while the girl kept cringing and breathing heavily as they kept moving to signify her pain.

She tried thinking of anything to block out the pain, but all she came up with were recent memories of how they had gotten to that moment. While Kakashi was also doing the same thing, though he was still in shock over what had happened.

* * *

 _Flashback- Hours ago_

 _These same two figures were hurrying to get out of Kirigakure (Hidden Mist) and head back to Konoha (Hidden Leaf). Kakashi had just rescued Rin from her captures, he had found the girl tied up to a post in front of a lake, and when he was looking her over to make sure that she was okay, she was in pretty bad shape though, it seemed that they had beaten her pretty badly. He also noticed that she now had a seal on her stomach. Kakashi didn't know anything about seals, but he someone who would...Uzumaki Kushina: Konoha's seal master. So together, the two raced out of Kiri, towards their home._

 _It wasn't long before they noticed she was missing, and Kiri immediately sent in a squad of Anbu to follow them. In no time at all, the squads had found the two's tracks and ran off to find them. They had found them on the border of Nami no Kuni (Land of Waves) and Hi no Kuni (Land of Fire). Kakashi knew they would come for her, so he immediately set Rin down so she could rest and uncovered his newly acquired Sharingan and engaged the Anbu squad. He had only managed to take out three Anbu out of 9 with his new technique: The **Chidori** (One Thousand Birds), but there were too many of them and too few of him, and he didn't have enough chakra to make enough **Kage Bunshins** (Shadow Clones). Right before he was about to get hit by the Anbu behind him, someone had appeared and had taken the Anbu member out with nothing but a punch. Kakashi looked behind him, and what he saw he would never forget again._

 _Standing right behind him, was his teammate, Uchiha Obito, though this Obito he didn't recognize at all. He seemed to be wearing a black cloak, with these weird tentacle like things sprouting out from the neck of the cloak, with his hand covered up in something really white that Kakashi just assumed was bandages, and his left eye was being covered up by the tentacle like things. Kakashi was amazed at seeing his teammate alive, his eyes were even starting to tear up. For days since his supposed 'death' he had been torturing himself about his friends death. He was so stunned by his arrival that he didn't even question how he killed that Anbu member with just one punch._

 _"Hey Kakashi, are you guys alright?" His teammate asked, then his eyes loomed over towards Rin, whose eyes were just as wide as Kakashi's at seeing Obito alive, his eyes seemed to linger on her for a little while before directing his eyes to Kakashi again. Kakashi couldn't speak however, he just stared at his teammate as if he were a piece of art that he couldn't understand. "Kakashi-teme, are you guys alright?" The Uchiha asked again, all Kakashi could do was nod dumbly at the sight before him. "Well, if your alright, then lets get Rin out of here, NOW!" Obito ordered, Kakashi nodded again, and together the two charged the Anbu again, with Obito taking out most of him with his new found strength.  
_

 _They had managed to cut down all but two Anbu left. With Obito right next to Rin in a defensive pose, while Kakashi was on the other side of the Anbu to make sure they didn't try Kakashi saw something happen to Obito, the white things sprouting from his neck seemed to be moving and separating themselves from Obito, making the boy cry out in pain. All the while, Kakashi and the Anbu were watching with curiosity as to what was happening to the boy."Z-Ze-Zetsu, why are you doing this? I need your help, you know I'm not fully recovered yet." He called out to seemingly no one in particular, "Sorry Obito-kun, but Madara-sama is calling us back right now, it seems you are no longer of any use to him now, he never expected you to make it to your team it seems. Farewell Obito." The creature known as Zetsu replied, now completely separated from the Uchiha, leaving him only in his cloak. Obito immediately yelled out in pain and fell down to the ground next to Rin, almost unconscious. While the white Zetsu stood before him with an emotionless face as he stared at the limp form of his masters now ex-apprentice. "Goodbye Obito-san." Zetsu said as he sunk into the ground, leaving the Anbu and Kakashi in complete shock._

 _Kakashi saw one of the Anbu recover from his shock and start making his way to Rin, Kakashi immediately started to pursue the man, with the other Anbu right behind him. Kakashi knew that, while he was fast enough to outrun the Anbu behind him, he wasn't going to be fast enough to save Rin, and Obito was in no condition to fight anymore since the Zetsu thing left him. Little did he know, that this was all apart of the Anbu's plan to get Kakashi to let down his guard and charge towards their ticking time bomb to save her, so he could change the direction of the attack to Kakashi instead._

 _Kakashi started pushing everything he had into his feet to go faster and faster, he was almost there, he was so close! He was too late though, the Anbu was raising his kodachi and about to stab at the girl, Kakashi kept running and running to save her, while Rin stared at the man with fear in her eyes as she saw him raise it about to take her life._

 _Kakashi was right behind the Anbu and about to strike him down, when out of nowhere, the Anbu turns and was about to stab at Kakashi. The masked jonin had wide eyes as he realized that he had been duped by the Anbu and he was going to pay the ultimate price for it. Right as the blade was about to stab him however, he saw a black blur appear right in front of him and then all he saw was red. Everything froze, the two Anbu, Kakashi, it even seemed as if the rain had frozen in place. The only thing Kakashi saw was a red liquid flowing like a river down to the ground. The red substance seemed to be coming from the being in front of him, his eyes started tearing up as he realized that the person facing him, with a kodachi jutting out from his stomach, was Obito._

 _'_ Why? Why? WHY!? _' Kakashi was screaming in his head, "Obito, why, after all I did to you, I treated you like shit, so why?" The grey haired jonin asked, the Uchiha gave Kakashi a look that seemed to be a look of confusion, "I- I don't know why, all I know was my body moved for me, it gave one last push, Kakashi, please tak-" the boy was silenced from his words by the Anbu behind him, who had had enough of his talking and had taked the kodachi out and stabbed the boys heart. Killing the badly injured boy instantly._

 _As he saw Obito fall before him, he felt something trickle down his cheek and soak in his already soaked mask. He let out a massive war cry and all he saw for the next couple of minutes was red._

 _When he came to, he saw that both Anbu were dead, and that he was sitting right in front of both their bodies, both unrecognizable as he saw that they both had massive wounds coming from just about everywhere on their body. He looked down at himself and noticed that he was covered in the blood of his enemies._

 _"K-kakashi?" Rin asked in an almost scared tone. Kakashi turned and saw that Rin was right next to Obito's body, tears streaming down her face, being covered up by the rain. Rin then pointed to Kakashi's eye, when Kakashi touched it to feel what was there, he saw that it was blood, '_ But I didn't get hit at all, what happened?" _He thought right before he remembered just what happened minutes ago._

 _Kakashi looked at Obito's body, and he wanted to morn for his friend, but he had a mission to do, he was going to bring Rin home, he wasn't going to loose any more teammates today. Not if he could stop it. And even though the Uchiha never finished his last sentence, Kakashi had a feeling that it was about him taking care of Rin._

* * *

Flashback End

"We're almost there Rin, come on, we can make it." Kakashi called out as the two were about to enter the Village. Kakashi called to the two gate keepers to open the gate up for them. And after showing them his ID, the two guards opened up the walls to the Village. Kakashi and Rin entered the Village, with the help of one of the guards, while the other raced to the hospital to get some help for the two teammates. All the while, Kakashi was trying to remain hopeful that Kushina could help them with the seal and that it wasn't too late. Even though it had been awhile that he had spoken to his Sensei's girlfriend, he knew that there was no one who had more experience and mastery in skills than the Uzumaki Heiress herself. He only hoped that she wasn't out on a mission since she seemed to be taking a lot of missions lately, and that was why he hadn't seen her in so long. At least that was what Minato had told him when he asked.

They didn't make it too far after, before they were greeted by some medical nins, who then carried the two toward the hospital. "We're going to make it Rin, I'm going to go and get Kushina-sama and she will be able to make everything all right, I promise." Kakashi said, and after seeing Rin nod her head weakly, Kakashi then Shunshinned to his sensei's house, hoping that either one of them was there. He knocked on the door, and after seeing no one answer the door, Kakashi began to worry, ' _what if they aren't home and the seal on Rin begins to kills her. It's already making her weaker, so we don't have much time le-'_

Kakashi was interrupted from his thoughts when he heard an incredibly loud "RRRRRRROOOOOOOAAAAAAARRRRRRR" come from behind him. He felt the ground shake from underneath him, and when he turned around, he prayed to every god he knew that this was all just some nightmare he was having.

For before his eyes, he saw a gigantic fox that was even giant from the distance he was at, standing with a look of anger on his face, while the 9 tails behind him kept smashing on the ground, destroying trees and any wild life that was unlucky enough to be in that area at the time.

' _Oh Kami! what is that! How did the Kyuubi get here?, I thought that it died when the Shodaime Hokage's wife died.'_

* * *

Uzumaki-Namikaze house, hours before

"Are you sure it's happening right now?" Minato said in a half worried, half happy tone.

"YES OF COURSE IT"S HAPPENING RIGHT NOW YOU BAKA! WHY ELSE WOULD I BE SCREAMING AND HAVING CONTRA-AAAAGGGHHHHH!." Kushina screamed as she felt another contraction. She started giving Minato a look that seemed to promise that as soon as this was over, he would be receiving pain that would even make someone like Hidan beg for mercy.

Minato on the other hand, was almost crying tears of joy. After having so many hardships with the war going on, now was the time that something good would come out of it. He was finally going to be a father to two beautiful children.

"MINATO, GET OFF YOUR ASS AND GET ME TO THE HOSPITAL RIGHT NOW!" Kushina screamed, Minato nodded his head so fast it seemed as if his head would fall off. He grabbed his wife and focused on the kunai he had stored in the secret hideout that they had setup before hand just in case Kushina's seal broke.

Minato set Kushina down on the bed that they had made for her for when her water broke. Then hirashinned away, and came back later with the medical staff that he would definitely need for this.

And then the doctors went to work. Helping Kushina in any way possible, while Minato was right by Kushina's side to watch for her seal. Though, since he didn't know a lot about seals, he didn't exactly know what to look for, only for what Kushina had told him. Contrary to what most people believed, it was actually Kushina who made the seal for the Hirashin and gave it to Minato, saying that she had no real need to have it, since the Council never let her out of the Village anyway ever since she was kidnapped. Though that did not mean that Kushina was weak in any way. Determined to bring honor and pride to her clan, Kushina practiced for years in two of their three specialties: Sealing and Kenjutsu. She had gotten so good in kenjutsu, that she had even taken up an apprentice recently by the name of Uzuki Yuugao, a 12 year old girl who was the dead last in her class and was determined to get better by any means necessary, and who better to teach her than from a Kunoichi who was said to be able to rival Tsunade Senju, and the best Kenjutsu user in the entire village.

Since the creation of the Hirashin, Kushina had tutored Minato in the art of seals and had gotten Minato to Jiraiya's level of seal making. Though, neither of the two could compare to Kushina in any way since she was from the Uzumaki clan, who would need to be Jiraiya and Minato's level of seals to even be considered Chunnin level.

So Minato stood by Kushina's side while the doctors helped her out in any way they could, while Kushina screamed in pain and squeezed Minato's hand, making it turn a shade of red that would make her hair jealous. After what seemed like eternity to the both of them, they heard a strong cry and saw the doctor carrying a beautiful baby. After the doctors checking him over, they looked up at Kushina and said "This one's a boy, congratulations you two." With a smile behind their masks.

The boy seemed to take most of his mothers features, he had her trademarked red hair and a roundish face that made him resemble a tomato. It seemed the only thing he had inherited from his dad was how his hair seamed to be spiking up once they wiped it off with a towel. The thing that made him different however, were the 3 red marks that had adorned his cheeks. They looked like whiskers, but when the doctors wiped them, they didn't move at all, showing them that they were only birthmarks.

"Okay, that's one down, now one more to go, Kushina-san, I know your tired, but I need you to push just a couple more times." The doctor said in a calming voice as he handed the baby over to Minato so he could carry his newborn son. Kushina screamed out in pain again as she pushed again and again to get the second twin to come out. While Minato looked carefully at her seal so that he could seal it if the time came.

After a few more hours of this, they heard another strong little cry, though this one had a higher pitch to it's voice, and saw the doctor hold up another baby. After doing the same process they had done to the first child the doctor said "It's a girl."

The girl seemed to take on her father features more than her brother had, adoring Minato's blonde hair, and a little of his facial features. On the outside, if you were to look at both twins, you wouldn't even think they were related, but the one thing they had in common that showed they were was the whisker like birthmarks that had also made their way onto the baby girls face.

"Meet your two new children Kushina-san." The doctor said as she walked over to Kushinas side and presented the baby girl, while Minato leaned over and presented the boy. Though she was awfully tired from having just given birth, she looked over at her children and a large smile was brought upon her face as she watched her two beautiful children who happened to be sleeping peacefully thanks to the nurses calming them down. "After nine months, I finally get to meet you two." Kushina said with an exhausted but joyful voice. "Have you two decided on the names yet?" The nurse asked as she grabbed the baby from Minato's arms, Minato looked at Kushina then back at the nurse and the two gave a nod at the same time. "We decided a few months ago that the boy will be named Naruto. As for the girl, well, let's let he mother decide that one." Minato said as he turned to Kushina's exhausted form, "I think her name should be Himawari (Sunflower), it fits with her hair color." Kushina decided as she looked upon her daughters hair. Everyone nodded at her choice and Minato came closer to her side. As the feeling start to sink in, Minato and Kushina both started getting happier and happier, with Minato proclaiming "ha ha...! I'm a father now...!"

"Alright, I know it's rough having just given birth, but we need to completely suppress the Kyuubi again." Minato said as he put his hands over Kushina's seal. Kushina gave a reluctant nod as he did so.

But before he could seal it again. He heard an emotionless voice say "Not so fast Konoha no Kiiroi Senko (Konoha's Yellow Flash)." Minato turned and was frightened by the sight of two dead nurses and two men wearing black cloaks, though one had a mask on with one hole on it for the eye, and the other had no mask, allowing Minato to look at his face. Though, the mans face was someone Minato had never seen before. He had a rather plain face, that seemed to show as much emotion as Danzo's a ROOT ninjas did, while his eyes were brown and while his jet black hair seemed to remain flat no matter what. The thing that frightened Minato almost to death was that the unmasked man was holding Naruto and Himawari in his arms. "Namikaze Minato...step away from the Jinchuriki... or else your two children will die after their first minute." The masked man threatened as he put his hands over the two children's sleeping faces. "Wh-Who are you...!?" Minato asked as he stared at the two men. Just then, Kushina let out a groan of pain, "Kushina!" Minato exclaimed as he stared at his wife's form. ' _the Kyuubi is still trying to escape'_ Minato thought.

"Hurry up and move away from the jinchuriki, don't you care what happens to these little gaki's?" the masked man asked in an emotionless voice. "Wait!...Stay calm!" Minato said with a scared tone in his voice. "Speak for yourself. I am supremely calm." The masked man said.

Having enough of this, Minato grabbed a kunai out of his pouch and **Hirashinned** to the man holding his children and stabbed him through the chest, while making to grab the two children from his grasp.

Though, to his surprise, the man didn't falter, or even loosen his grip on the two children he was holding. When Minato looked down, he saw that the man wasn't even bleeding from the stab wound in his chest. "Minato! Naruto! Himawari!" Kushina shouted as she watched the seen from her bed. "Bad move Yondaime Hokage." The man said as the unmasked man quickly tossed the two children into Minato's arms, who gave a surprised gasp and held the two kids, while the masked man raised a kunai, aiming for his back. "Urgh!" Minato said as he had to **Hirashin** away.

Minato reappeared back in his and Kushina's home and saw that neither kids were hurt, or had even awoken by the commotion going on. "(phew)...Naruto and Himawari aren't hurt" Minato said as he laid them both down on the bed. ' _He forced me to use the **Hirashin**_ _... His target was Kushina...so he seperated us, but how did that man not even flinch as I stabbed him with a kunai? Was it a jutsu or a kekkei genkai?" Either way I have to hurry or he might kill Kushina, or worse, unleash the Kyuubi.'_ Minato thought as he grabbed his trademark Kunai and started racing out of the door.

Meanwhile, back at the cave, the two men were now approaching the weakened Kushina, who had a look of fear on her face. "Wh-What are you two go-going to d-do?" She asked fearfully. "I'm going to extract the Kyuubi from you and crush Konoha once and for all." The masked man said, and with that, Kushina saw a red eye activate behind the hole in his mask and the next thing she knew, she felt the Kyuubi chakra leaving her completely.

"Watch out, once it forms, tons of debris will come falling down on top of us, I'm sure master will not like you dying all because of some debris." The emotionless man said as he looked at the forming chakra. The masked man simply nodded his head and said "Now! Come on out Kyuubi!"

As he said that, the chakra formed and the large physical form of the Kyuubi broke the cave and caused the ceiling to come crashing down on them. The two men kept dodging the falling rocks, while luckily enough, none seemed to come crashing down on Kushina's body.

The Kyuubi then looked at his form for a little, as if it couldn't believe that it was finally out, then let out the same bloodthirsty roar that interrupted Kakashi from his thoughts.

"Now, it's time to take care of Konoha, once and for all." The masked man said as he started walking away from the collapsed cave. He had only taken a couple of steps when he heard "(Ugh)...Wait." He turned around and saw a very weaken Kushina trying to get up from her bed and confront the two men behind her.

"My my my... You Uzumaki clan are just amazing. You don't die right away when the beast is distracted. Master will want to hear about this. Well, it won't matter for long, and since he was sealed inside you, it's only fair if he has the chance to kill you." The man said, then the Kyuubi turned his head and looked at Kushina's form and raised a hand to crush her.

As he raised his hand, the two men saw a piece of metal fly over to Kushina and land right next to her, before the Kyuubi could crush Kushina, they saw a yellow flash and then saw that all the Kyuubi had crushed was a bed and some rocks.

"They don't call him flash for nothing it seems. No matter, it's too late for him to do anything now." The masked man said to his partner.

Minato reappeared at their house and Kushina at first was shocked to see him here, but then her mind immediately started to worry, "Minato...are the kids...are the kids alright?" She asked weakly. Minato didn't say anything, but instead opted to take her to the two. He entered their bedroom and Kushina looked over to the bed and saw the sleeping forms of her two children.

Minato laid Kushina down by the two and said "You rest easy now, just be with Naruto and Himawari. I love you Kushina-chan." Kushina looked over and saw that Minato was zipping up his flak jacket and grabbing more of his gear. He started walking out of the room and before she could say anything to him, he used the **Hirashin** to disappear completely.

* * *

Kakashi right now was currently running along multiple other ninjas toward the Fox. Though, with all that had happened in just the past 24 hours, Kakashi didn't feel as if he were mentally fit for fighting right now. He needed to know if Rin would be okay, as far as he knew, the seal had either been removed from her at the hospital, or it had already killed her, leaving Kakashi as the only living member of Team Minato. Kakashi shook his had at that thought ' _No! that's not going to happen! I'm going to find Kushina-sama and she will be able to reverse all of this. But where is she?, I don't see her or Minato-sensei anywhere.'_ Kakashi thought as he and the other ninjas, Anbu to Chunnin alike, raced from tree to tree to go and face the Kyuubi in battle, even though they knew they were sure to loose.

If it wasn't for the man leading them, than they all would have already started to retreat as they saw the Kyuubi also starting to make his way over to Konoha. That man being the third strongest ninja the village had ever had, thus making him the Sandaime Hokage (remember, Minato hasn't become Hokage yet in this story) and known far and wide as the Shinobi no Kami (God of Shinobi), Sarutobi Hiruzen.

Thanks to his inspirational speech, they all rallied behind him and they started making their way to the demon. Though since the Kyuubi was going a lot faster than they were, it didn't take too long before they were staring at the running feet of the Kyuubi. "GET READY!" Sarutobi yelled and all ninja, including himself, got into their respective taijutsu stances. Though everyone immediately broke lines when they saw the Kyuubi ignore them and run right over them and continue running towards the village.

All the ninja turned and were horrified as they saw the Kyuubi do a jump and land right in the center of the village. The ninjas then stood and watched as he easily started destroying every and anything it saw. They stood by and watched as his claws ripped through buildings, and as each individual tail smashed down onto the ground, killing any civilian withing it's range.

With new found vigor, the Hokage shouted at all of his ninja "DO NOT DESPAIR, FOR THE WILL OF FIRE WILL TRIUMPH OVER EVEN THIS BEAST!" And all the ninja watched as the somewhat elderly Hokage sprinted at top speed towards the village. As they saw their leader, the ninjas then knew that what he said was and had been proven true and they all let out a war cry and started following their leader to battle again.

Hiruzen was well aware that all the ninja he had at his disposal that were combat ready were with him, but doing a quick backwards glance, he noticed that he hadn't spotted a mop of blonde hair. ' _Minato, where are you? The village needs you.'_ thought as he raced back to the village. Taking one more backward glance, he did spot a mop of gravity defying grey hair and thought that the young jonin would be able to know where his unofficial successor. Falling a little bit behind, he let the ninja catch up to him and soon enough was running right next to Kakashi, "Kakashi-kun, where is Minato?" He asked in a worried but low tone, so that no ninja could hear him. "I don't know Hokage-sama, I've been looking for him everywhere, is it possible that Minato-sensei is out of the village right now because of a mission?" Kakashi asked. Hiruzen then realized why Minato wasn't with them, and felt the need to face palm himself for not realizing it, ' _I'm such an idiot, Kushina must have gone into labor earlier today and that's how the Kyuubi was released! So I already have one of my strongest ninja gone, that makes it all the more important that Minato be here right now.'_ Hiruzen thought to himself while also feeling sad as he realized that the red haired Uzumaki must be dead if the Kyuubi was outside of it's seal.

"Hokage-sama?" Kakashi said as he looked at this leader. "Kakashi-kun, we might have to do this without Minato's help, for if what I suspect happened, has happened, then Minato might be too troubled with grief for him to fight with us." The Hokage said to the young jonin. Leaving Kakashi to wonder what happened to his sensei that was so bad. ' _Was Kushina-sama killed on a mission or something, what happened, Minato-sensei has always been there for us when we needed him.'_ Kakashi thought as they raced back to the village.

* * *

Minato meanwhile, had been hunting down the two men that had caused all of this to happen to Konoha. He wasn't having any luck however, for every acre of forest he crossed, it seemed the two men that did this had just vanished completely. He was about to give up, until her heard what seemed the like the crunching of twigs and leafs. He ran off to where the noise was and sure enough, spotted the two men walking casually out of the village.

The two men stopped and the one with no mask said "It seems as if we have been found, Master will not like it if you are killed." "Yes, I know, but that is what you are here for." And with that said, the no mask man nodded and turned to face Minato, while the other seemed to disappear into the ground.

Minato was about to go after the masked man, but after seeing him disappear, ' _Does he have a kekkei genkai as well?, or is that some kind of time-space jutsu that I haven't seen before.'_ Minato thought as he then looked and saw the other man, was getting a kunai out to face the blonde haired shinobi. And so, Minato got into his taijutsu stance, and saw that the other man was getting into his. Minato then threw the kunai at the man used the **Hirashin** (flying thunder god) and teleported right in front of the man again, and stabbed him one more time in the same place he had before. "Do you ever learn?" The man said while getting ready to bring his kunai down onto Minato and the blonde shinobi quickly used a **Kawarimi** (Substitution) to quickly replace himself with a log and get away from the man. "My, you are fast, but will you be able to be fast enough today?" The man said, "What are you talking about?" Minato said with a strict face he only used for his enemies. "All I'm saying is that you have to first deal with me, and you have to take care of the Kyuubi, along with another surprise that is sure to come your way soon enough."

This made Minato's confident and strict face falter for a little, facing the Kyuubi and trying to find a way to kill this man would be hard enough, but now he had to deal with the next 'surprise.' Minato wasn't sure he could do it all. "What are you plotting?" Minato asked, "Oh, I haven't actually done anything, now has my partner nor my master, it's about what Kiri has done. Though I should give them credit, without them, the plan had a chance that it could fail." The man said, which made Minato only worry even more, the way the man said, even in an emotionless tone that he had, it sounded that he knew that there was no way for this to fail. No matter what happened. Knowing he had to get back to the village and quickly, Minato threw the kunai at the man again, but this time prepared a **Rasengan** and used the **Hirashin** to reappear at the man again. "Using the same attacks won't always get you the same result, just a tip." The man said, but what he wasn't prepared for was Minato thrusting a Rasengan into his chest, which caused him to spiral and be thrown back and hit a tree. Minato ran up to him and checked him, and noticed that there was no pulse on his neck. ' _That's one threat down, hopefully they are all this easy to take care of."_ Minato thought as he started making his way back to the village, but since he knew what he was running to, he couldn't help but feel a sense of foreboding.

* * *

"What are your orders Hokage-sama?" One of the ninja asked as they neared the village. "As soon as we get there, I want a squad of two to go and make sure everyone has evacuated the village. Start with the hospital and then go and check the safe-room we have in the Hokage Monument. Kakashi, find someone else and go and evacuate anyone you see." The Sarutobi said. Kakashi nodded and grabbed another jonin, and together the two seperated from the pack of ninjas and headed off to the Hospital. Kakashi for one, was somewhat happy that he could head and check up on Rin, even if it was to check and see if she was still alive. ' _Maybe the doctors identified the seal on her stomach and were able to remove it from her.'_ Kakashi thought as he raced with the other nin towards the hospital.

As they entered the building, Kakashi and his partner looked around and saw the entire hospital was in disarray trying to evacuate the patients. And seeing as how Konoha was still fighting a war, the entire hospital was filled to the brim with ninja's who had been injured fighting the enemy. Kakashi and his partner agreed to separate so that the partner could evacuate the higher levels of the hospital, while Kakashi evacuated the lower levels.

Evacuating everyone turned out to be easier said than done. With the Kyuubi's roars being heard all over the place, and his attacks causing the entire hospital to shake and seem as if it would fall down. Within all this mayhem, all the doctors were running to different patients and different rooms to help and move them, but Kakashi could see that they were panicking on the inside and would much rather leave while they still could.

Standing by the doorway, Kakashi started hurrying the doctors and patients on beds out of the door, while looking out for the Kyuubi. As the patients exited the hospital, Kakashi would also do a quick glance to see if any of them were Rin. Even after what seemed like forever of helping these people leave, he still hadn't seen her and was starting to get worried that she might have died form the seal and the doctors had taken her outside the hospital for burial when the Kyuubi attacked. Kakashi saw his partner at the back of the room with what he assumed to be the last of the patients and was about to give up hope of ever seeing his teammate alive again, but for the last patient, he was greeted to the sight of a girl with purple Inuzuka like markings on her cheeks. Kakashi's eye watered a little as he saw that the girl was in fact okay, but then saw her face and all he could see was a look that seemed to be begging someone to kill her to make the pain go away.

"Rin, Rin are you okay?" He asked in a hurrying and scared tone. Rin didn't seem to hear him because of how much pain she was in. He looked up at his partner and said "Get a doctor back here to come and take a look at her." The jonin nodded and was about to leave, but before he could he felt something grab his arm and looked down to see the girl looking at him with pain clear in her eyes, but also with a look that said ' _don't.'_

The jonin nodded his head again, and looked back up at Kakashi's masked face and he felt that he needed to give them a moment. He looked down at the girl and she gave a slight nod towards him, before he shunshinned away from them to go and assist in the Kyuubi attack.

Kakashi grabbed Rin's hand and looked at her, "I'm going...to be...be fine Kakashi." Rin said in between clenching her teeth from the pain she was experiencing. Kakashi nodded his head at her, though he was pessimistic at what she was saying. Rin saw the sad look his eye seemed to give off and before she could say anything, she screamed out in pain and clenched her stomach. "RIN!" Kakashi yelled and grabbed the girl and started heading off towards the Kyuubi "Kakashi... What are...you doing?" Rin barely managed to get out as she was being carried, she currently had her eyes closed, so she was unable to see the sight before her.

Kakashi took a slight pause as he looked out into the village again. The Kyuubi seemed to want to make sure no one or thing would be spared in his assault. Buildings were either completely destroyed or were on fire and partially destroyed, while the landscape around him seemed to resemble Iwagakure (Hidden Stone Village) rather than the village the land was located in. All around him was just bare dirt that had craters in it and ash on the ground. Kakashi shook his head and said "I'm going to take you to Hokage-sama, even though he is busy with the Kyuubi, he is the only other person I know right now that can help you." With that, Kakashi took off at top speed to the Kyuubi once more, but stopped as he felt a knew powerful chakra surface from no where.

Normally, Kakashi would be relieved at feeling such a strong chakra, maybe it was Minato's and he was coming to fight off the Kyuubi. But he knew that that was the least likely option, for this chakra felt just as evil as the Kyuubi's did, and what made him worry was where he felt it coming from.

He looked down at the girl in his arms, and his eyes widened at what he saw

Coming out of the seal on the poor girls stomach. Was a red bubbling chakra leaking and it showed no signs of stopping anytime soon.

* * *

 **And that is chapter 1, hope you guys enjoyed it, sorry for the cliffhanger if your the kind of person who doesn't like that. Review and favorite.**

 **-TheDamocles**


	2. Ch 2 The First Broken Promise

**Alright chapter 2 here we go, just to let you guys know, the chapters quote will tie in with the chapter just in case you guys' didn't figure it out already. I won't be focusing on the pairing for Himawari too much. I know that not a lot of people will care about that part. Review and Favorite please.**

 **-TheDamocles**

 **Chapter Quote: "Anything you truly _want_ must be worth fighting for." -Anonymous**

* * *

Ch. 2 The First Broken Promise

 _Normally, Kakashi would be relieved at feeling such a strong chakra, maybe it was Minato's and he was coming to fight off the Kyuubi. But he knew that that was the least likely option, for this chakra felt just as evil as the Kyuubi's did, and what made him worry was where he felt it coming from._

 _He looked down at the girl in his arms, and his eyes widened at what he saw_

 _Coming out of the seal on the poor girls stomach. Was a red bubbling chakra leaking and it showed no signs of stopping anytime soon._

Kakashi was focusing so much on the chakra coming out of Rin's stomach, that he missed her hand coming up to his face and cupping around his cheek. He was somewhat startled at the action, and he looked back at the girl, and saw that she seemed to at death's door. "Ka...Kakashi, don't...don't be sad... now I can be with Obito... just like he...always wanted." Rin said out in between long breaths. She looked back up at him and said "Go Kakashi, whatever is happening... it isn't going...to be good." Kakashi heard Rin's words, and he wanted to comply, but he felt that leaving without doing something, anything of worth to her, would be an insult to her memory.

Just saying goodbye wouldn't be enough, not after what they had been through in just the past 24 hours alone. He racked his brain as fast as he could to find something that would mean something to the dying girl in his arms.

Then it hit him, the one thing that both of his teammates had wanted to know for as long as they had been on a team together. He knew he didn't have a lot of time. So he quickly brought his hand up and wrapped his hand over hers. Gaining the girls attention. She opened her eyes a little wider and saw that Kakashi was guiding her hand down his face, towards his mask.

Kakashi had her hand pinch the brim of the mask, and together, the two brought it down, and once it fell forward past his chin, Rin gave a slight gasp at what she saw. She then smiled weakly at her teammate, and gave a slight nod of her head as she know understood that this was his way of saying goodbye, while also giving her his most important secret, so she could pass it on to Obito in the afterlife.

Kakashi brought his mask up, covering his face once more. And he gave one more nod to Rin, and then laid her down as carefully as he could. And then stood back up and turned and started to run away from her. Neither of them said a word, no words needed to be said.

As Kakashi ran though, he couldn't help but feel helpless, he didn't know what to do. Or where to go, he just started running away from the girl. Any noise that came to him, fell on deaf ears, all he heard was the blood pounding in his ears. And as he got farther and farther from his teammate, he felt his eyes tear up more and more, until finally, after what felt like he had been running forever, he heard the roar of the second bijuu unleashed upon Konoha, and the first tear fell down his cheek and onto the ground.

* * *

Minato had arrived on top of the Hokage Monument and saw that the Sandaime and his forces had driven the fox back away from the village, albeit barely. It had gone from the center of the village, to the outskirts, leaving nothing but ruin in it's wake. Minato that, while they had made progress, it wasn't going to be enough. He threw his kunai and waited for it to hit the ground, then used the Hirashin to teleport himself closer to the beast. He was about to throw his kunai again and teleport, but stopped when he saw the familiar gravity defying grey hair of his former student. The boy seemed to be distraught, and though he was far away, Minato could tell that Kakashi was in a lot of pain, though he couldn't tell if it was emotional or physical. Then, he heard another loud roar and looked to his left and saw that a gigantic turtle had risen up in the middle of the village. Then, Minato had a brief flashback of what he had heard only moments ago. _"It's about what Kiri has done, though I should give them credit, without them, the plan had a chance that it could fail."_

Minato's eyes widened as he realized that this was what the man had meant. It seemed that Kiri had managed to infiltrate Konoha and had unleashed another tailed beast onto the Leaf village, at least that was what Minato theorized, and this tailed beast seemed to have three tails attached to it, though it wasn't as poweful, that did not mean it wasn't as dangerous. For the first time in his life, Minato found himself in a situation that he did not know what to do. Through everything he had done, save Kushina from Kumo, kill the hundreds of Iwa nin, defeat Kumo's best tag team: Ay and Kirabi, he had a plan for them all.

But facing two bijuu at once, that made him feel like he was an academy student with a rusty and dull kunai, going up against the Shodaime. Or any Kage for that matter. It just didn't seem possible. Looking at the beast, it seemed to be getting it's bearings and noticing that one of it's kind was hogging all the action for itself, Minato took one last look as the beast started to make it's way over to crash the party. He looked back to where he saw his student and saw that he had stopped, he hadn't turned to see what was behind him. To Minato, it seemed like Kakashi didn't want to see what was behind him, as if the very image would scare him more so than if someone just saw a demon. That made Minato all the more curious as to what happened to his student. Running over to him, he put his hand on his shoulder, but Kakashi was so deep in thought that he hadn't even noticed the action, and didn't even notice Minato was there until he spoke up, "Kakashi?" Minato asked, Kakashi jumped a little at his teachers words and when he laid eyes on his teacher, he felt so many emotions just by looking into his teachers eyes, but out of all of them, there was one that stood out the most.

Anger

Kakashi couldn't believe that he had been searching for his teacher this whole time, hoping that either he or his girlfriend could save Rin, but now it was too late. Rin was dead, and there was no bringing her back. Obito was dead as well, and Minato had apparently been in the village, this whole time.

Then Kakashi snapped, he clenched his fists so hard that he could feel blood coming out of them, and then cocked his fist back and thrust it forward into his teachers stomach. Minato widened his eyes when he saw his student's fist cock back, then after he got over the shock and pain of what his student did and had taken a moment to breath a little, he backed away a little to give Kakashi his space.

"Where were you?" Kakashi asked in an angry tone, almost on the verge of shouting. Minato stopped for a bit, he knew he shouldn't tell him the truth, that he had been with Kushina helping her deliver the babies, that was an S-rank secret that no one needed to know about. However, because it had already happened, and because his student seemed so distraught, Minato felt it best if he did tell the truth. "I have been with Kushina-chan, helping her because she has been pregnant these last nine months, just moments ago, she gave birth to two beautiful twins, Naruto and Himawari. However, two men showed up and released the Kyuubi onto the village."

Kakashi let Minato's answer settle in his head for a little bit. And when he gave it more thought, he found that he was getting angrier and angrier. "So you mean to tell me, that for the past nine months, you and Kushina-sama have been...lying to me, Obito and Rin." Kakashi asked, his tone directed more at himself than his teacher.

" I did it because-"

"I DON'T GIVE A FUCK WHY YOU DID IT! ALL I KNOW IS THAT THE DAMN VILLAGE IS IN RUINS AND BOTH MY TEAMMATES, _YOUR_ STUDENTS ARE DEAD. THEY ARE DEAD, I HAD TO HOLD ONTO RIN AS SHE GASPED HER LAST FEW BREATHS, SHE'S DEAD NOW AND NOW WE HAVE THAT TO DEAL WITH. AND WHERE WERE YOU HUH? WHERE WERE YOU? OFF WITH KUSHINA WITHOUT A CARE IN THE WORLD! BECAUSE YOU FUCKING LIED TO US, LOOK WHERE WE ARE NOW!" Kakashi cursed as he stared at his teacher in the eye. Tear's freely streaming down his eyes. Minato had never seen this side of his student before, and the news that both of his students were dead was taking it's toll on him as well. He hoped that if Kakashi would listen to his side of the story he would at least understand. "Kakashi, I did it because-"

"THE VILLAGE IS IN RUINS AND NOW WE HAVE ANOTHER KAMI DAMNED DEMON TO FACE, ALL BECAUSE OF YOU, YOU WEREN'T THERE FOR US WHEN WE NEEDED YOU THE MOST, WHEN RIN NEEDED YOU THE MOST! YOU FUCKING BASTARD!" Kakashi shouted as he stepped further and further back from his teacher, before turning around completely and running into the forest where Minato had just come from. Leaving Minato far more wounded than he had ever felt from any of his missions combined.

The news finally settled into Minato, two students dead, and one who felt betrayed by his only father figure. He raised his hand and put it onto his chest, and felt his heart beating at it's regular pace, but on the inside, it felt like it had been stabbed by the rustiest knife ever. ' _He's right, I'm a horrible teacher, I promised them that nothing would ever happen to them, and that I would always be truthful to them. I told them one lie, and because of that lie, more sprouted from it, and now here I am, standing alone because my actions led to the destruction of the village. No, I can't be thinking about this, I will stop these two bijuu, by myself if I must, and I_ will _find a way to make it up to Kakashi, even if it means giving up my life.'_ Minato thought, he turned to the new opponent he had to face, a gigantic turtle that had now made it to the Kyuubi, and the two were now pushing the Hokage and his ninja back like they were nothing. Ruining all of there progress that they had made.

Minato figured that he needed to take time to meditate now because he wouldn't get a chance to later, and it would take a lot of his chakra to take them both down. He sat down and crossed his legs and began to focus on taking in the nature around him, and a few minutes later, he felt his sage mode activate. Not wanting to waste anymore time, he made a few hand seals, and bit his thumb and slammed it on the ground. While muttering three words barely audible enough for anyone, himself included, to hear.

"Kuchiyose no jutsu."

* * *

Hiruzen knew a suicide mission when he saw it. He had seen his sensei, the Nidaime Hokage, leave on a suicide mission, and he had seen countless others since then. And as soon as he saw the Sanbi appear next to the Kyuubi, he knew that this had now gone to an already losing battle, to a suicide mission, one from which he was not likely to win.

Him and the few other ninja that were still alive battle relentlessly against the two demons, but for every step they had them take out of the village, they had to take back four. He had begun to worry that Minato had been in the village and had already been killed by either of the demons, or he had been grieving over Kushina's death this whole time and was in no shape to provide them with any kind of support, moral or otherwise.

Him and his ninja released attack after attack, but no damage seemed to be done to the Kyuubi. They had slowed down the Sanbi, since it was the weaker of the two and wasn't in his element, so they had been able to achieve a sluggish bijuu, but still a dangerous one none the less. In fact, the slower they made it, the angrier it got, which only served to cause the shinobi to lose more ground.

Hiruzen saw the two bijuu look at each other for just a second, and then saw a slight nod come from both of them. They both focused their tails above their heads, and the elderly Hokage saw them begin to focus their chakra into two separate balls of energy. One obviously significantly bigger than the other being that the Kyuubi had triple the power the Sanbi had. As they focused the chakra to take the sphere shape, Hiruzen ordered his men to continue firing upon them, do whatever they could to stop them from completing whatever they had in mind. But the bijuu just shrugged it off, as if their attacks were nothing but dust in the wind.

Then, he saw the two demons come closer together, to a point that they were almost touching, and in doing so, bringing the two spheres of condensed chakra together, The two balls slowly merged into one, and growing bigger and bigger as it did so. Then, they came together completely, and Hiruzen knew that any and all hope was now lost. The two bijuu began to aim their ball o' destruction and right when they were about to fire it down onto the small group of shinobi. They felt the ground beneath them shake even more than it already was.

 _'Oh no, don't tell me we have another one on our hands, we've already lost this fight.'_ Hiruzen thought as he felt the earthquake. Then, right when the bijuu were about to fire their signature attack, they were both crushed under the weight of two toads that were in fact the same size as them. This caused the large chakra ball to be launched over the leaf shinobi and over to the upper part of the village, destroying all of the wildlife, but only taking out a smaller part of the village, something Hiruzen and his men were thankful for. They then brought their attention back to their saviors.

One of the toads was a magenta-colored toad with black markings on his face, arms, and legs with horn like protrusions on his head. He had a black kimono on with a white sash and mesh armor underneath, while he was currently using his sakazuki and sasumata to help him keep the Sanbi in check beneath him. The other toad was colored a dull, dusty red, but around his eyes, lips, and chest were brighter red markings. There was also a giant scar adorning his left eye. This toad was wearing a large blue happi vest with the kanji for ebi on the back. In his mouth seemed to be a large kiseru pipe that he was currently lit while he used his dosu blade to keep the Kyuubi in check.

Hiruzen thought that this was as close to an act of Kami as he would see in his life. He looked closely and saw that on top of the toad holding down the Kyuubi, there was a mop of blonde hair holding on for dear life that was now recovering from their giant leap that they had taken to get from the village to here. ' _Minato, you really did come through, just like you always do. Though, if he survives this, I don't know how he will cope with Kushina's death, as well as the death of his children.'_ Hiruzen thought grimly, this was Minato Namikaze. The hero of the leaf, he had single handily taken out a large mob of Iwa nin that were on their way to destroy one of Konoha's main outposts, if they had succeeded, they would have ground in their territory as well as an almost perfect strategic position for an all out assault on Konoha. But because of Minato's bravery, they had been able to stop them from coming into their borders, thus ensuring Konoha's safety for one more day.

He most certainly did not deserve to lose his unofficial wife, as well as the two kids he was soon to receive. But apparently, life is cruel and had ripped away everything Minato had cherished, at least, that was what went through Hiruzen's mind as he saw Minato leap down to the point where the two bijuu were closest to each other. Then, as soon as he touched them, he saw a golden light shine on both bijuu.

And then there was nothing. Nothing, no bijuu, no Minato, and the toads disappeared in a huge puff of smoke. Leaving the Shinobi present to feel relieved and also sad. They felt the ground rumble beneath their feet and they turned and saw the two bijuu that they were hoping would just die already appear miles away from the village, something Hiruzen was thankful for, and now they seemed to be more angry than before at having been set so far back by one shinobi.

"Hurry we need to help Minato!" Hiruzen shouted to his men, who were already tired, but after seeing Minato hold them down on his own, they felt like they had to do whatever they could to help him.

* * *

Minato was now in a small clearing facing the two enormous beasts, his sage mode was gone because of all the chakra he had exerted in summoning the two giant toads as well as teleporting two just as big demons as well as himself at the same time as far away as he could. By now he knew that even though he had a good amount of chakra, with all of his attacks, the most he could do is make the demons back up, and maybe exhaust the sanbi. The two demons stared at him and then started attacking him with all there might. Minato found himself dodging countless tails, claws, chakra powered attacks, all of it. As he dodged attack after attack, he began thinking over every option thoroughly, and he found himself staring at a blank wall. There seemed to be nothing he could that would end up saving the village.

The mans words then echoed once more in his head " _the plan had a chance that it could fail."_ Minato shook his head, there was always something that he could do. Then, an idea came to him, a seal that Kushina refused to teach him, but he had read and learned behind her back. He almost dismissed it as he knew that in doing so was condemning two lives he already loved with all of his heart. But alas, he knew that this was what he needed to do, so he focused on a kunai he had in his home and teleported and ran to Kushina, who was laying on the bed completely exhausted from having the Kyuubi ripped out of her as well as giving birth to two children, who were laying next to her sleeping with happy smiles on their faces. "Kushina-chan!" He said running to her side, he saw Kushina lazily turn her head to face her lover and saw he had a sad look upon his face.

"M-Minato-kun, what is it." Kushina said weakly as she stared at the blonde man. "I'm sorry but I need to take the kids, it's important I promise." Kushina was shocked, her lover was taking her kids away from her. As well as taking them to fight a powerful demon, Kushina turned to her kids and brought her arms up to shield her two sleeping children away from their father, in fear of what he might do.

"Kushina, it's for the village, I'm sorry, but this is the only way, I promise you that I don't want to do this any (sniff) more than you do." Kushina turned to start shouting at him, but saw that his head was low so that she couldn't see his eyes, but she looked lower and saw two wet drops on the floor, and that was all Kushina needed to know that her lover was trying to hide the fact that this was tearing him apart on the inside.

Deciding to put her faith into her lover, as well as putting her own insurance into the matter, she reached up and cupped his face with her hand, one hand on each cheek, causing him to look up and see a weak nod from her head. Though, he didn't see or feel the two seals that Kushina was placing on both sides of his face. He reached forward, past Kushina, but was stopped from going any further by her. She reached to the two kids herself and secretly placed the same seals as she had on Minato, onto them. Then, she gently grabbed the two twins from their bed and handed them to Minato, who comforted the weak Kushina and then teleported once more back to the clearing he was at.

As soon as he left, Kushina began channeling chakra to the Hirashin seal she had just placed on Minato, as well as reserve chakra just in case she needed it. Due to how weak she was, she knew that it was going to take time, time that she did not wish to spend. But none the less, she knew this was needed, and it also helped that if Minato was in any kind of trouble, the other seal would alert her and as a fail safe, it would activate the Hirashin to use the chakra Kushina had stored in their to Hirashin her to him. So, with that knowledge, she continued to channel chakra to the seal, and began to feel the golden glow surround her.

* * *

Minato appeared at the clearing and felt that most, if not all of his chakra was gone. He only hoped that he still had enough to go through with his plan. He turned and saw that the demons were slowly walking back to the village, now determined to destroy it to pieces. He placed the two children on the ground, carefully so not to disturb them. He made a few hand seals and two alters appeared, both being big enough for them to fit in the little bed in the center, as well as having eight candles surrounding it. He carefully placed the two children down into the two alters, knowing he didn't have a lot of time, he made more hand seals and shouted "Shiki Fuin!" (Reaper Death Seal). Behind him, he felt a new presence appear. Looking back, he saw the very death god that he knew would appear, with his soul being held in its hands, being restrained by it's long gray hair. It had what appeared to be a knife being held by the it's mouth. Minato turned back around and focused on the two bijuu and prayed that this would work.

He willed the seal to activate, and he felt the shinigami behind him thrust his hand into his back, and then he saw his hand appear out the other side, chasing after the Sanbi. Minato didn't know if the arm was going to be able to make it. For every meter it grew, a rather large portion of Minato's chakra was taken up. Leaving him exhausted, but he knew that he needed to do this. But with him being this tired, he wondered if he had enough chakra to be able to take down the Kyuubi. The arm finally reached the Sanbi, and Minato could see, even from the great distance he was at, that the arm was retracting, bringing with it the monsters enormous chakra supply with it. The Sanbi yelled in rage, and the two bijuu turned around to see the same blonde shinobi that had already become a major annoyance in their plans to destroy Konoha.

The arm came back and Minato forced the chakra to channel into the beautiful baby girl that was lying on the alter just to the right of him. He then yelled out "Seal!" And saw all of the demons chakra disappear into his daughter. Minato looked at the child, and right when he was about to do the same process with the Kyuubi, he felt the seal already taking hold, and saw that the shinigami was in the process of cutting the chakra. Once it was severed, the shinigami took Minato's soul in it's hands, and gave him one last nod. Minato understood what he was doing, and he was sure that if the reaper behind him knew that he had the strength to take the Kyuubi with him, he would hold on, after all, who's more patient than death? But it was the fact that the shinigami knew that Minato was at his limit. Minato nodded at the shinigami and as one last gift, he channeled his remaining chakra into Himawari's newly developed seal that was appearing onto her stomach. Once the seal was finished, he saw the girls eyes burst wide open, and the girl began to cry. As if she knew of the burden she already had on her shoulders.

"Goodbye Himawari-chan, next time I see you, I know that you will be the beautiful girl that I know you are. I hope that your mother will be able to take care of both you and Naruto." Minato said as he tried to make his way to her in an attempt to soothe her. As he took a step, his mind started to wonder to all of the memories in his life. Images started to appear right before his eyes, some he hadn't thought of in years came into his head: The room he had when he was in the orphanage, the first lock of red hair that he found when looking for Kushina, graduating from the academy as Rookie of the Year, being pushed down a dark pit because his teacher said it was a 'training exercise,' taking Kushina out on their first date, facing the large group of Iwa nins. The last one that appeared in his head was of him and Kushina, they were both standing in front of a camera, with his hand being placed right onto her growing stomach.

He summoned up his strength and took one more step towards his daughter, he started thinking of everything that had happened to him in the last few hours. ' _This isn't how it was suppose to happen, I was suppose to at least stop the Kyuubi as well, Even now it's coming towards me and it knows I can't do anything to stop it. I hope that Kushina is still alright._ ' One more step and he was brought back to reality as he saw that he was right in front of his daughter, to the left was Naruto, still sleeping soundly. Without meaning to, Minato saw his eyes water as he took glances at both infants, if they were tears of happiness or sadness, no one could tell. Not even Minato himself could tell. "I'm sorry for this, I truly am Himawari, but this was the only way to save the village, I hope the day comes where I can explain myself to you." He ignored the sharp stinging like pain that he was currently feeling on one side of his face. He then took his last breath and collapsed right next to the crying girl, his arm barely touching her forehead, and that seemed to be enough for the young girl to fall asleep once more.

This was the scene that Kushina saw as she arrived at the clearing. Her lover dead right next to her daughter with a seal. She already knew what seal he made, and she immediately bent down and placed one hand on the ground and began to cry. ' _This isn't how this day was suppose to go. Today was suppose to be one of the happiest days of my life, as well as Minato's.'_ Kushina thought. She then heard a growl and looked up to see the beast she used to contain within herself, looking down onto her with that trademark fox grin. It seemed to want to relish every second of this moment, seeing no form of resistance from Kushina, the Kyuubi then started to raise it's hand, ready to bring it down onto Kushina. As Kushina stared at the Kyuubi, all the sadness she felt started to turn to anger. She clenched her fists and stood back up, she took a quick glance and saw Naruto still sleeping soundly in his altar bed. ' _No, no matter what happens, I will not condemn my own child to a life of solitude like Minato has already done. Damn him.'_ She thought as she shook her head. She knew what Minato was going to do, but she was in no condition to challenge him. She was still weak even now, but she knew that if she didn't stop it here and now, she would end up needing to seal it within Naruto. And she shuddered at that thought, picturing her son living the same childhood she had, but with no Minato to help her, and no Uzumaki Mito to ask for guidance. Then she quickly looked over to Himawari and saw Minato comforting her even in death. All of the anger then returned tenfold and looked up and felt her chakra chains sprout from her back and rocket up to the Kyuubi's hand coming down on her at great speeds.

The hand stopped as it felt something tiny and sharp, and incredibly hot dig through it's skin, like a nail. And pop out the other side. The Kyuubi looked down and saw Kushina's chain pop through it's hand and it immediately grew angry with the pain it was feeling, and started to swing it's other arm down, only to find it interlocked with another set of chains and unable to move. The Kyuubi looked behind itself and saw the chain that burst through it's hand was wrapping itself around all of his tails. It roared at Kushina, and saw the red haired woman giving the Kyuubi the worst glare she had ever seen, the Kyuubi had seen Kushina when she was given the nickname the Red Hot Habenero, and the Kyuubi could say that Kushina earned it. But the look she was giving the Kyuubi now, made all the hairs on its back stand up in fear.

"YOU'VE TAKEN EVERYTHING FROM ME! MY FRIENDS, MY VILLAGE, MINATO, MY HAPPINESS, MY OWN DAUGHTERS HAPPINESS, WHAT ELSE DO YOU WANT!" She shouted at the top of her lungs. Causing Naruto to waken from his nap. He started crying at all the noise he heard, and that was when Kushina turned her head back again, and saw her baby boy crying. She immediately grew fearful and turned back to face the Kyuubi, turning her voice down so not to make her boy cry any more than he was. "I will not let you take his away too, I don't care what it takes, you will _not_ be taking my sons life or anything else. And you're definitely will not touch another inch of this village, I promise you that. You know me better than anyone on this earth, so you should know that when I make a promise, I keep it, no matter what." She said, knowing that even though her voice was quiet, the Kyuubi could still hear her.

The Kyuubi grew another grin on it's face, almost as if the promise Kushina had just made was a challenge for it. He began struggling and throwing it's weight all around the place, doing whatever it could to brake free. The chains around it showed absolutely no signs of breaking at all, the only thing that it seemed to be doing was making the chains tighten even more around itself. It struggled even more and more, doing anything it could to break free, but all it did was fall on it's side, breaking even more of the forest. With her back facing Kushina.

Getting an idea in it's head, the Kyuubi struggled more to make it look like it was still trying to escape in that way, and brought it's legs up to one of it's arms, and tried to get one of the claws under the chain. Succeeding in her plan, she started pulling on the chain, slowly but surely pulling the chain away from it's arm. Freeing it's arm, but being very discreet on moving it's arm. The Kyuubi then began to extend it's claws, very much like a cat. It closed it's eyes and started reviewing in it's head where the Kyuubi remembered Kushina to be, but knowing that she was not an idiot, she would most likely be on guard in case the Kyuubi did anything. So aiming for Kushina was a bad idea, even though her hand was huge, Kyuubi knew that Kushina was still fast enough to dodge, even in her weakened state. But, what it did know was that there happened to be two children that couldn't dodge in time. **_'That might not be a bad idea'_** The Kyuubi thought. It then turned as fast as it could, bringing it's hand along with it.

All Kushina was able to see was the Kyuubi still struggling in its chains, she was still on her guard, ready in case anything happened. The only thing that she was able to see, was a subtle, but noticeable movement of the Kyuubi's leg raise, but she couldn't see what it was doing.

Just in case something happened, she started to move away from the Kyuubi, but still keeping an eye on the beast. She however, was not expecting the Kyuubi to bypass her and aim for Naruto. Her guess was that the Kyuubi was going for the kid that still had a chance to seal it away. Himawari already had a demon placed inside her, so she wouldn't be able to handle another bijuu, especially the most powerful, being sealed within her.

Kushina watched as the Kyuubi's claw got closer and closer to killing Naruto. She knew that this is what the Kyuubi had planned, not going after the kid, though if it could kill Naruto that would be a bonus, but knowing that Kushina wouldn't let that happen. Channeling her chakra to the seal she had placed onto Naruto, she hirashinned to her child and not a second later, she felt the claw enter her stomach and appear out the other side, passing through her insides as if they were made of paper trying to stop a kunai.

 **"HAHAHA! You Fool Kushina, you said it yourself, no one knows you any better than I do. I knew exactly how you would react. But don't worry, you'll be seeing your kits again soon. Really soon, and after I've dealt with them, I will continue to kill and destroy everything and anything that you ever held dear. It is a shame though that your previous village was destroyed, I might have let them live. Oh well, shit happens, good bye Kushina."** Kyuubi said as he watched Kushina's breathing become shorter and sporadic.

Kushina lost focus after the Kyuubi talked about killing her kids, she looked down at them both, as well as the form of her dead lover. All she could think was that, she had failed. For the first time in her life, she was going to fail what she had promised. She had never felt so helpless before, two innocent children, less than a day old, were about to die, as well as civilians. Though they were often mean to her, because of what she used to have sealed within her, she still never wanted to see anyone die. Never.

 _'NO! I will not let this happen. I'm still breathing and I have chakra, I don't care that I've been stabbed, I will stop this thing. If I die, than I'm taking this down with me.'_ Kushina thought as she got the same idea as Minato and made the hand seals. Like what happened to Minato before, she saw the same shinigami appear before her and wasted no time in activating the seal.

Though, because the Kyuubi was already occupying space around her stomach, all the shinigami had to do was reach her body, not resulting in losing as much chakra as Minato had. But she knew that she would not have enough chakra to fully seal it within herself again. Though she had enough to make the seal stable, her body was diverting energy into healing the giant wound she was suffering from, as well as having the Kyuubi removed from her. So if she sealed the Kyuubi within herself again, the beast would just continue to struggle free like before, and as soon as her dying breath left her, the beast would be released onto the village.

Tears started to fall from her eyes as she knew that today would be the first and only day in her life that she broke a promise. The only option she had was to seal it within her son. If she didn't the Kyuubi would destroy the village and kill her son, both she made promises to protect. She focused the chakra to her son, and watched as it all entered her son, causing him to continue crying, but even more than his sister had. As all the Kyuubi's chakra entered the red haired infant, Kushina made a few more hand signs and watched as the same seal she had, seared onto the skin of her son. Knowing that Minato most likely did the same thing to Himawari, Kushina placed the last of her chakra into the seal. "I-I'm so sorry Naruto-kun, I-I would have loved nothing more than to be w-with you and your sister w...when you two grew up. But, know that I love you, also, protect your sister from harm. I know it will be hard because of what you two are, but continue to push through it. Also, know that I am with you always, and when you are facing the hardest test of your life, I will be with you to help you. All I ask of you, become a strong shinobi. Not for a village, but for our clan. I want to say so (sob) so much more, (sob) but I can't. I love you Naruto-k."

And before she could finish her loving suffix, her last breath left her.

* * *

 **Okay that is chapter two. Hope you guys enjoyed it. I know it took me longer to write than ch. 11 of N.B, but that is because I have had writers block for this chapter, I knew what I wanted to write, but I couldn't put it into the right words. Does that sound correct? I don't know. Review and Favorite if you wish. See you guys next chapter.**

 **-TheDamocles**


	3. Ch 3 Fallout and New Decisions

**Chapter 3, here we go. I'm sorry if it seemed that I had rushed the ending for last chapter, I didn't know how to make it any more sad than it was. So again, I apologize. If you noticed the change I made to this story, the only things I can say is that the story will continue as I planned, and that I did this because there are no fanfiction stories that I have read where they have this pairing. Anyway, Hopefully this chapter is better.**

 **-TheDamocles**

 **Quote- "What defines us is how well we rise after falling."**

 **-Unknown**

* * *

Ch. 3 Fallout and New Decisions

Hiruzen and his company of shinobi had arrived just as the sun began to appear over the horizon and they saw the Kyuubi be sealed into something that they couldn't make out, all they could see was the Kyuubi getting smaller and smaller before disappearing all together. They got closer and closer before entering the small clearing that currently held 2 dead bodies right at it's center. He noticed that all of his other ninjas were paralyzed with fear. And for good reason. Who would want to see two dead adults just inches away from two innocent infants.

He took a step forward and then another, then two more. He looked behind him and saw that none of his ninja were following him. He got closer and closer to the two until his shadow was appearing over them. He stared down at them and then out of the corners of his eyes, he saw other shadows appear over them and didn't even need to look to know that his company had joined him. Together, they looked down at the forever sleeping heroes that saved the entire village.

From what he could tell from Minato, the last movement he made was trying to make it to his daughter, judging by the the way his arm was outstretched towards his daughters cheek. What was strange to Hiruzen was that Minato showed no physical signs of injuries, suggesting that he might have died from other circumstances. He looked back at his squad and noticed that they were now kneeling towards him, and Hiruzen could understand why, even if you took saving the village from the bijuu out of the equation, Minato had it all when it came to the Village's favor. He was the hero that saved lives in the Iwa attack, as well as the Kumo attack, was all but officially the next Hokage, and had come from humble beginnings. His loss will be a major blow for Konoha's moral. Hiruzen then turned his attention towards Kushina.

She was position in a way that made it seem that she died standing over her child, seeing as she was a lot closer to the child and the dry tear stains that adorned her face. She was laying on her stomach, with one hand on her stomach, and the other outstretched somewhat so that she could still touch her child. Her hair was also spread out all over the place, like the way it usually did when someone made the bold and foolish move to piss her off. Her hair even combined with Naruto's and everyone could agree it was impossible to tell where Naruto's hair began and where Kushina's hair ended at the intersection.

Hiruzen bent over and grabbed both children from their beds, but when he tried to pull them up, it seemed as if his body had aged 10 more years in the action. He immediately felt so... so tired.

Tired of sending squads of ninja, young and old, sick and the weak, to their deaths. All because the village needed it all in order to survive this war. Now, with this attack, it seemed that they had just taken a step forward and 5 steps back. All those deaths meaningless. All the death that will come will be even more disastrous. Especially if they were planning on making it through this war. As soon as the word got out that Konoha had been attacked by two bijuu, and had nearly been destroyed, they will have constant attacks at their borders.

"Hokage-sama" One of his Anbu said. Hiruzen was snapped out of his thoughts and noticed that he was still bent over to pick up the two infants. Summoning hos strength, he picked up the two kids and turned back to his shinobi and said nothing as he started moving back towards the Hokage Tower.

* * *

Outside the Village Walls

Two Shinobi could be seen running towards the village. They both seemed to be in a hurry. One had blonde hair tied up into a ponytail as well as a diamond on her forehead, while her companion had pale white skin and purple snake like markings on the sides of his eyes and dark hair that was almost as long as his companions. Both were wearing their headbands around their foreheads and the war jonin uniform that consisted of black anbu shirt and pants, with a dark purple armor around their torso as well as their forearms.

They had both been coming from a mission, but when they felt the earth shake and the smoke start rising out towards where their home was, they started running as fast as they possibly could to see if they could do anything to help. They entered the village and saw it in ruins, buildings flattened. The once proud and thriving village reduced to nothing but a pile of wreckage, rubble, and ash. All within one night. People were looking through the wreckage to see if they could find loved ones or personal belongings, or who knows what else. Some tents had sprouted up for shinobi uses, and for the sick or the wounded.

"How could this happen?" The female said, not expecting an answer from her teammate. Nor did he give one, instead, her teammate seemed to be lost in his thoughts. ' _'Why do people have to die? Why are they subjected to a fate as cruel as that? Someone needs to help them, where is Sarutobi-sensei? Someone needs to help these people. Is he dead? If so, than who will take care of them?'_ He got so lost in thought, that he hadn't even realized that his teammate had stopped moving until she shouted at him, much like she does with Jiraiya. "OROHIMARU!" He turned his head, and saw Tsunade pointing toward a group of shinobi just coming out of the forest with two children in one of the shinobi's arms. Though he couldn't make out much about the two kids, he could definitely make out red hair and blonde hair on the kids.

They ran towards the group and upon closer inspection saw that their sensei was leading the group and was alive, whether he looked well was another matter entirely. The man looked like he had been awake for 5 days straight. His skin was paler than usual, and he walked as if he needed a cane, with each step he took a couple seconds to take a breath and then continued on.

"Sensei!" Tsunade shouted, but their sensei gave no outward sign that he had heard her. They saw him keep walking with his squad of shinobi. Just as Tsunade was about to shout at her sensei again, they saw him walk towards a tent and whisper something to his shinobi and then continued to enter the tent. Tsunade and Orochimaru then decided that it would be better if they talked to him in private instead of in public.

They walk towards the tent and entered to see their sensei sitting in a chair and leaning over a desk with two contently sleeping children laying just above where his head lay. The desk was found by his shinobi who had found it in the wreckage and had brought it to him so that he could still resume his activities. Tsunade was about to speak up when she saw Orochimaru raise up a hand and she turned towards him and saw that he was watching their sensei. He seemed to be studying him, and upon a closer look, Tsunade heard soft sobbing, like their sensei wanted to cry, but did not want to risk any of his shinobi hearing him sob in his one and only moment of weakness.

"Um...sensei?" Tsunade asked, the man shot his head up and gazed upon his two students with a look of shock at first. Tsunade and Orochimaru both expected to see the man wipe the tears away from his face and ask for a mission report, but instead, all he did was let out more tears and slump lower in his chair. The two sannin then saw a look they never expected to see from their sensei, a look of complete deterioration. As if simply breathing was making the man weaker and weaker every time. The man continued to sob uncontrollably, and the only thing they could hear was "I can't" repeated over and over in sporadic motions, almost as if he were stroke victim.

"Wh-(gulp) what can't you do anymore sensei?" Tsunade had gulped in fear of what her sensei had meant in his words. Out of the corner of her eye, she also saw Orochimaru's eyes narrow, his own form of body language that Tsunade had picked up on over the years. Normally when he did something like that, it meant that something had taken his curiosity and he didn't like a possible outcome. "I can't handle this job anymore. All I've ever wanted since I first became a shinobi was to mae the Will of Fire burn brighter in every shinobi under my command. But now, I feel like all I've ever done is take a step forward while taking three steps back."

"That's not true sensei."

"Oh it's not? Have you looked outside? In fact, don't even bother, just look at these two children. These two children are proof that I have failed."

Tsunade stared at the children and finally understood his meaning. Those two children, one with red hair and one with blonde hair. Obvious signs of who their parents are. And with that thought, the gears in Tsunade and Orochimaru's head finally clicked and they understood what had happened without any one saying anything.

"What are there names sensei?" Tsunade asked, Hiruzen had a melancholic smile, like a memory that had once been happy. but had now turned sad. "Kushina told me that if they had a boy, his name would be Naruto after Jiraiya's first book, she also told me that they were toying around names for a girl. They didn't tell me what they were set on, they said if she had red hair, her name could be Mito or maybe Fuso, but if she had her dads features like she does, they said... what names did she say, oh that's right, they told me Tsunade after you obviously Tsunade" Tsunade gave a smile at their thoughtfulness to name their daughter after herself. "And they also told me that they really liked the name Himawari, I think that it's safe to assume they chose that name because her hair is close to a sunflower's color." Both Orochimaru and Tsunade agreed with him.

Then, just like that, the little light that they had in the room died out as they soon ended talking about the names of the two babies and the whole room seemed to have a blue hue because of it.

"They aren't going to have it easy are they?" Hiruzen said, to seemingly no one in particular.

"What do you mean Sensei? I mean, they are practically royalty coming from Kushina and Minato. The village will be praising them as soon as the news gets out about their heritage."

"No, no they won't." Orochimaru said, Hiruzen nodded towards him, and it seemed that he and Orochimaru were the only ones who were able to piece together what had happened between the small family. "What do you mean? What about them sets them apart from normal people?" Tsunade asked, she couldn't think of any reason they wouldn't be treated well. And if their was a reason, it wouldn't be as big as what Orochimaru and Hiruzen were making it out to be.

Then it hit her.

"One of them is a jinchuriki." She stated more than asked. Orochimaru nodded while Hiruzen shook his head at her. When he shook his head, Orochimaru gave him a sort of questioning look. Making Hiruzen elaborate for the both of them. "From what I can guess, you two pieced together that the Kyuubi broke free of its seal during child birth last night."

Orochimaru and Tsunade once again nodded.

"But what you two do not know is that, Kiri also attacked us. They were somehow able to sneak the sanbi behind our walls and then, as we were attacking the Kyuubi, the Sanbi appeared and started causing havok as well. I thought we were all dead, but luckily Minato showed up and teleported both bijuu away from us. I didn't know myself what Minato had done to get rid of the bijuu until we arrived on the scene. We stumbled into a clearing with two dead bodies, and two children with a bijuu inside them. From what my sensor was able to tell, they felt a stronger chakra deep inside Naruto, leaving us to believe that Naruto has the Kyuubi and Himawari has the Sanbi."

Minutes passed and Orochimaru and Tsunade were still digesting the news they had just heard. Two bijuu attacking the village, a successful unknown attack from Kiri, Minato and Kushina dead, they had been able to deduce that from the news and emotions shown to them by their teacher, but deducing and being told are two different things entirely, just as opposite of each other as fire and water. The last and hardest pill of news to swallow was that their sensei was revoking his title of Hokage.

"If you said you can't do this anymore, what will you do sensei?" Orochimaru asked in his usual curious/monotone like voice. "For now, the one thing that I know that I need to do is elect a successor, if I don't, I fear I will simply collapse in front of my shinobi, and right now, there is a very limited amount of things that we can afford to do, and that is definitely not one of them. As for later, I think that it's time for me to leave this village to its own devices."

"But what of the village? What of Biwako? If they see you back out now they will lose any shred of hope they have left." Tsunade said. Hiruzen looked Tsunade in the eye and for that moment, Tsunade could see that the man was practically begging them to not pressure him into keeping this job for any longer. "I know, and that is why for the village's sake, I will stay here for until the end of the war, at the end, I am going to have to leave. I can't look at anything here and not think of my failure here as a Hokage. As for Biwako... She well..." He said with a sad and shaky voice. He said nothing after that, leaving it up to his students to figure out what had happened to her. Both students lowered their heads for their sensei and all three gave a moment of silence to the Sarutobi wife.

"We understand your reason for leaving sensei." Orochimaru said. Though Tsunade thought she heard a sort of quivering in his voice. She looked at him and saw what surprised her was that he showed much less emotion than he usually does, making her worry for her teammate. Tsunade and him both nodded and for a brief moment, Orochimaru and Tsunade both thought that they saw a smile grace their sensei's lips. It brought both of them back to when they were both gennin, and all that mattered in the world was training and teamwork. Now the world was not so simple, if that was because they had grown up or because of the war, neither of the sannin could say.

Almost as soon as the smile appeared however, it disappeared. "I thank you both." He said, "This war has taken too many lives, and far too many spirits. Ever since my sensei had made me Hokage, I always thought that as long as I stoked the Will of Fire into the hearts of men, I could achieve the peace I have wanted for so many years. But how can I stoke the fire, when every time I do I end up getting burned? No, I realize now that I was not the one who was meant to stoke the fire, I was meant to merely check to see if it still burned. But like a moth to a flame I was attracted to it. And I paid the price for it. Now, after learning my lesson too late, I will step aside and wait."

"But if you step down, who will run the village?"

"Why, you three of course. I had imagined that you guys would carry up my legacy, and before you say anything Tsunade, I know that you want Dan to become Hokage, but he's just not an S-rank ninja yet, as for yourself, you and I both know that your duties as our best medic cannot be ignored, especially now. Jiraiya is the same, he has his new spy network that he is working on, and if he became Hokage that would distract from his duties for that network. Not to mention the fact that from his message he sent me, we do not know when he will be coming back."

Orochimaru's eyes widened. If two of his teammates were already out of the running to be Hokage, than that could only mean.

"Are you saying-"

"Yes Orochimaru, as of right now, you are the Yondaime Hokage."

* * *

 **Okay, that's the chapter, sorry if you do not like the Orochimaru Hokage thing. I just think that is the most practical thing that would happen in this situation. And remember that by doing this, Orochimaru does not become bitter and start experimenting on people, so put that into consideration. Sorry for making this chapter shorter than the other ones I've done. I wrote all I wanted to write in this chapter. Next one will be longer, I can promise you that. Review and Favorite.**

 **-The Damocles**


	4. Ch 4 First Time for Everything

**Okay Chapter 4, let's do this. Hope you guys do enjoy, like I said last chapter, this one will be longer than my last chapter.**

 **-The Damocles**

 **Quote: "I struggled a long time with surviving. No matter what, you keep finding something to fight for."  
**

 **-Joel (The Last Of Us)**

* * *

Ch. 4 First Time for Everything

"Was the attack a success?"

"Yes Mizukage-sama, Konoha is currently a pile of rubble... however."

"What?!"

"The Sanbi was defeated by Namikaze Minato."

"So you're saying the Sanbi now lies with Konoha? How?"

"We do know that the only way to defeat a bijuu is to seal it within a child, but that is all we know. All of our sources say that the Sanbi simply... disappeared. Although, it is difficult to trust them on their words since they were not there at the fight."

"Sanbi...Disappeared?"

"Yes sir, they said that the Sanbi disappeared in a flash of yellow, and there is only one ninja in the world that can do that."

"hmm. It seems our plan has backfired on us, we were able to destroy Konoha, but we ended up giving them our bijuu in the process. Is there any way we could find the jinchuriki and capture it again?"

"I don't think so sir, I think that Konoha will triple their guard after an attack like this, and it's hard enough to infiltrate it as is."

"Very well then, I'll bide my time. Now that Konoha is on the defensive, we have time to spare. In the meantime, I want you to find out as much as you can on the jinchuriki."

"Yes sir Mizukage-sama."

"You are dismissed.

* * *

Kakashi had made it back to the village two days after the attack and still in the same mood as he was in when he had left. Feeling as though he had no real purpose in life and that anyone who he ever cared about would die because of him. He just kept walking, having a destination in mind, but not looking up as to where it even was. He just knew that he would know it when he saw it.

He had been in deep thought after he left his sensei. Just mulling over the past couple of hours over and over again in his head and wondering what he could have done differently. So far, he hadn't been able to think of anything, at least, nothing that could have saved the lives of his teammates. That alone made him frustrated since he was the type of person who never took 'no' for an answer. He had briefly thought of his actions when he had talked to his sensei. In his mind, everything he did was justified because Minato was the one who lied to him in the first place. After a while of thinking it all over, Kakashi had decided to go back into the village to get some advice from the Hokage. And maybe even share how this whole attack started. But that was a huge maybe.

He looked up and saw exactly what he was looking for. The Hokage's military tent. He kept walking and entered and was surprised when, instead of an older man sitting in the chair behind the desk, was a snake like man with dark long hair. As well as two sleeping infants sleeping peacefully in their own beds right next to him.

Before that, Orochimaru had been sitting in his sensei's chair, looking over all of the war reports and was feeling quite concerned about their state of bring right now. He knew that they had been fighting a war on three fronts, with the fourth focusing on how to fight them indirectly with poisons and other toxins. Looking at all reports, he knew that if they were to push for any offensive action, the other villages would use that time to attack them again. They barely had enough ninja to defend themselves, let alone attack someone. All this news made Orochimaru feel as if he were in between a rock and a hard place. The best move for them would be to tighten up on their patrols and maintain their defense for as long as they could. But there was a bright side in their predicament, because Konoha had almost won the war before this attack, Orochimaru knew that the other nations would be hesitant when talking about attacking Konoha. Orochimaru had also let it leak that they were able to seal the beast into one of their own shinobi, saying that they had invented a seal that could keep a grown adult alive and adapt to the bijuu's chakra. As well as keeping any information about the Kyuubi reappearing in Konoha. So now they were viewed, or at least hoped that they were viewed, as a nation that had gone from no jinchuriki to one.

However, rumors spread around Konoha like wildfire. Rumors that always informed the people that the two bijuu had been sealed into two children, children with bright blonde and red hair. Orochimaru had quickly told them that no one is to talk about the jinchuriki being children, under fear that if any village were to find out, they could attack with even more force. This shut the masses up for now, and Orochimaru was planning on using this time to divert their anger to Kiri since they were the ones who had attacked them. But he knew that as the war dragged on and the death count became higher and higher, it would be harder and harder to convince them to place their anger on them, when the two beasts were in the village.

However that seemed strange to Orochimaru, because in the academy, he was taught that the Kyuubi had died when Lady Mito had died, taking the beast into her grave. Then all the sudden it just appeared again in the middle of their village without anyone noticing? Something didn't seem right here. He knew that he would need to look into this matter later when he had the time.

He had just filled out the last piece of paperwork he needed in order to send out the order to tighten defenses when a boy that he had never seen before walked into his tent. He looked up and saw that the boy was looking at him with bewilderment in his eyes. As if he were trying to put two and two together, but didn't know how to get to one, let alone two. Though he was beginning to suspect and fear that the elderly Hokage had died in the battle.

The look on Kakashi's face surprised Orochimaru a little, since his sensei had made it official the day before in front of all his shinobi that he was stepping down. And though all the ninja were sad, he brought their spirits back up when he said that he would gladly fight alongside them and that he had no plans of retirement.

' _Not yet at least.'_ Orochimaru thought as the boy in front of him continued to stare at him speechless.

"W-Who are you?" The boy asked with a similar monotone voice that Orochimaru used from time to time. "I see you haven't heard the news yet. Tell me, where were you last night? if I may ask." Orochimaru said. Though Kakashi didn't know what had happened in his absence, he was smart enough to figure out that the man in front of him was most likely Hokage, if the robes and hat he was wearing meant anything, but what he didn't know was how that happened. "I-I was outside the village sir. Certain...events made me want to be alone for the time being."

Orochimaru studied the young Hatake and did indeed notice that the boys attire screamed that the boy had been through _something._ If the bloody clothes was any indication."What is your name gennin-san?"

"Jonin."

"I'm sorry?"

"I'm a jonin, not a gennin, and my name is Hatake Kakashi. I would like to ask you the same thing sir, and what has happened to Sandaime-sama?" Kakashi said. At first, Orochimaru was blown away at the revelation that this young teenager in front of him was a jonin. It made Orochimaru curious as to what the boy could do. "I can see that you have been uninformed Kakashi-san. Yesterday, the Sandaime chose his successor, and the only ninja in the village that could assume the position were his own students, however, Tsunade-san is busy working in the medical field to run a village along with it, and Jiraiya-san is busy working on a new spy network for us. Thus leaving me in charge of the village." Kakashi was a little surprised to meeting Orochimaru, one of the three S-rank ninja who had been trained by the Sandaime himself, then something he said struck him.

"Wait, only ninja? What about Minato-sama?" Kakashi asked, even though he hated the man, he still did respect him, albeit in minimal amounts. "The bijuu attack took a big toll on all of us, lives lost, buildings destroyed, spirits broken, and unfortunate fates sealed." Kakashi knew what Orochimaru was implying and he couldn't help but feel sorrow for his sensei, not for the man he was, but for all he did. He couldn't deny that even though he no longer looked up to the man as any kind of figure, the only reason he respected him was because he helped him become a jonin at such a young age and teaching him to care for others and not just himself. Kakashi also saw Orochimaru's eyes drift towards the two children sleeping in their beds. Kakashi then stared at the two children and instantly saw it. As well as remembering something Minato had told him before he had ran off.

A boy and a girl.

One with red hair, one with blonde.

 _"I have been with Kushina-chan, helping her because she has been pregnant for these last nine months, just moments ago, she gave birth to two beautiful twins. Naruto and Himawari."_

"Naruto... and Himawari." Kakashi said the two names as if he were stuck in a trance. Orochimaru stared at the jonin, wondering how he knew the two kids names if he hadn't been in the village for the past couple of months. "How do you know their names?" He asked Kakashi.

"They...those two... they're what started this entire thing." Kakashi said as he stared more and more intently at the infants. "What do you mean Hatake-san?" Orochimaru asked, curious as to what this jonin knew. "The attack on the village... Rin-chan's death... Obito's death... Minato-sensei's death... all because of them." Kakashi said as he now raised a hand pointed at the two. "Those to... demons are the sole reason for this village's suffering."

"How do you know what they contain?" Orochimaru said, the pieces of the puzzle slowly coming closer and closer together as Kakashi got angrier and angrier. Though he would not allow him to put any harm on the two children, he will let him say what he wants if he got information from it and figured out how this all happened. And he knew that Kakashi had the answers.

As for Kakashi, when he heard Orochimaru say 'contain' it got him thinking as to what they could possibly contain. Then he remembered a seal on Rin's stomach, and what that seal housed. At the thought of that, he got angrier, thinking that Minato had done the exact same thing to the two infants. Disgracing Rin's memory in the process of sealing and not destroying the very beast that killed Rin, and sealing such powerful beasts into something so evil and things that had caused this whole mess to begin with. Thinking more and more about the subject made Kakashi even more angry than he already had been.

"We need to kill them! Before they kill even more of us!" He shouted as he finally had enough and started running towards the infants with a kunai in his hands. He never got there though as he was stopped by a blast of Killer Intent from the newest Hokage. Kakashi looked at the man dead in the eyes and immediately regretted it. Inside Orochimaru's eyes, Kakashi saw his death play out over and over again. The scene made Kakashi wither like a flower and he returned back to his old position and placed the kunai into his pocket, fearing that he might kill himself if he didn't.

"Jonin Hatake, these two are not demons, nor are they the cause of all this. Even if they were, they are our most powerful weapon right now and I will not let them be destroyed because of one ninja with a grudge. These two children are not to be injured for any reason, do I make myself clear?" Orochimaru asked with a strict tone.

Kakashi, who still hadn't recovered from watching his death, merely nodded his head like his life depended on it and started to run out the door. However before he got out of the tent, he heard Orochimaru tell him "Also, you are hereby on a week of relief to calm yourself down given what I suspect has happened to you as of late. So take the time I am giving you and be damn grateful for it" Kakashi nodded his head one more time and ran out the tent.

As Orochimaru saw Kakashi leave, he let loose a massive breath upon realizing that Kakashi would only be the first. He looked towards the two children. "I only hope that I can help you as much as I can. For how much fault can you be at, when you are 2 days old?"

* * *

3 years later

A three year old Naruto and Himawari were currently playing a game with Orochimaru. The game was to hide somewhere inside the small office that Orochimaru had, and see if he could find you when he opened his eyes. The two children had shown signs that they were smarter than the average 3 year old, they could understand most of what was said to them, so long as it was short and simple, and had even began to read and speak a little, though they were better listeners than talkers. Though that didn't stop them from having their fun, they loved to play with Orochimaru, and he easily found that the twins had stamina in spades since by the end of am hour of playing, they left Orochimaru feeling like he had done a full day of training. But over it all, he couldn't help but feel a sense of fatherly pride to the twins, he guessed that was natural since he was the one that was currently raising them to try and attain their full potential.

As they played Hide and seek, they looked for every nook and cranny they could find, but every time they were caught of course, though it was quite easy when you have the senses of a shinobi and can hear their footsteps move all over the place. Orochimaru had grown fond of caring for the twins and had even gone so far as to place their beds in his office so they could stay in his office. Though this was mainly for protection, Orochimaru didn't want anybody hurting the poor children so he had taken measures into his own hands. He had also taken every measure that he could take to make sure that they were protected every minute of every day. He wasn't a fool, he knew that the villagers were starting to turn their hatred to the two children, but if he could keep them under his protection, then he would defend them with his life.

But through it all, this was the one time of day that Orochimaru always looked forward too.

Over the last three years, the war had taken a very ugly turn for the Leaf village. The enemy hadn't been able to break past their defenses yet, but they had all formed a blockade around the village, suffocating it from any outside involvement that could help them. So now, the village had to survive off what it could grow and what water it had. And their simply wasn't enough food that could be grown in such a short notice and some water sources were destroyed when the bijuu attacked, limiting them even further. On top of that, they still had the other villages raids to consider, making them loose even more of their men. There was good news that had come from these long years of battle however, Suna had officially backed out of the war due to most of their ninja falling in battle, as well as Tsunade making antidotes to their poisons. Kiri then declared itself neutral once more in the matter and backed out, and while Orochimaru was glad that he only had two villages to worry about now, he couldn't help but feel that Kiri was up to something since he now had all the pieces of the puzzle thanks to Kakashi finally telling him the whole story once he cooled down and came back. Now all they had to worry about was taking out as many ninja as they could so that they could end this infernal war. The way Orochimaru saw it, the only way this war would end would be mutually, Konoha was in no shape to attack anyone, and if they defended themselves correctly, Iwa and Kumo would be in no shape to spare any more ninja, leaving all three villages in equal shape.

But all the starvation, dehydration, and fallen ninja added up to the death rate of all their ninja increasing drastically, which made the civilians turn their sorrow and grief into hatred. And what Orochimaru feared above all was what or who they would blame when everything was over.

Orochimaru had just called out Naruto's position and was about to tell Himawari to come out when his strategic commander, Nara Shikaku came into his office. Like always, he had the expression on his face that screamed that he would rather be anywhere else right now watching clouds than do what he was doing now. "Hokage-sama." Shikaku said. "We have recieved word that Sandaime-samas forces have been all but wiped out, we can't send them anymore reinforcement without leaving their sector around the wall open to attack as well."

Orochimaru frowned at the news and asked "Well is there anything that we can do to help them?" Shikaku walked over to the wall where a map of the village was and began pointing to various locations as he talked. "Over here, on the northern section by the Uchiha district, we have our shinobi being pinned down constantly by Iwa's forces which have only been growing as each day passes. Over by the southern section we haven't had any attempts to flank us in a past couple of days, however, our number of shinobi there are too few so we cannot risk to re-position any of them right now. By the eastern sector, right by the Inuzuka estate, is our weakest part in the village perimeter, but it would be worse if Sandaime-sama was not there, coincidentally this is also the spot with the largest moral from the troops. But sir, the western sector right by the Hyuuga estate, has been predicted to be attacked next by a combined assault of Iwa and Kumo, it seems they are growing tired of this war same as us. Our best strategy, would be to set up as many traps as we can throughout the line, as well as re-positioning the few ninja we can afford to."

Orochimaru thought over the information given to him, and couldn't help but feel as if he was failing already in his duties as a leader. Day by day, as each report came in that told him of how many shinobi had died, it was almost like Orochimaru could hear the screams of the fallen and it terrified him to no end. ' _This must be what made sensei give up, this feeling of all these souls disappearing is overpowering. I've never felt so helpless or guilty.'_ Orochimaru thought.

"Do we have any advantages that we could use?" Orochimaru asked. Shikaku looked over the map and said "We could possibly ask Tsunade-sama to create replicas of the poisons used against us and perhaps hope to gas them. That would definitely help the men, but with their moral so low, they will be fighting an uphill battle sir."

Orochimaru nodded and knew what needed to be done. If they were going into this decisive of a battle, they would not be alone. But what scared him was that he knew if he left his office, he didn't know when or if he would come back. If they won the battle, he doubted that his conscience would allow him to leave his men, and if they lost, well, that prat was pretty self-explanatory.

He looked over to Naruto, who was playing happily in the corner with a toy kunai that Orochimaru had given him, and he grew a smile on his face as he saw the blissful lack of knowledge known as childhood ignorance. But then his smile grew to a frown as he realized that if he left on this battle, then he could not take care of the two twins. He thought about granting them someone to look after them, but no one in the village was available. Every man, women, and child was doing their part in making sure that the village kept standing. The men were the soldiers, though not all of them could fight as well as the shinobi. Because of the wipe out of their forces due to the bijuu attack, Konoha had been forced to train the able bodied men in the basics of taijutsu, ninjutsu, genjutsu, or medical ninjutsu and immediately send them into battle ready or not. Most women were forced to take over the jobs that the men left behind, mainly industrial supplies for the troops or farming for food so the village could eat. The children were learning about medical ninjutsu and it's benefits, since Orochimaru had seen fit to establish Tsunade's medical plan of adding one medic to every shinobi team, and from the point where they could disinfect wounds, they were then taught how to perform surgeries at the ages of 9-12. After that, they would learn how to apply medical chakra if they could at all.

So throughout all of this, there was only one place that could take Naruto and Himawari in. Orochimaru only hoped that he could save them when he came back from battle. "Alright, get me my gear and meet me at the Orphanage." Shikaku nodded and went to go follow through with Orochimaru's orders. Orochimaru then said "Come on out little one." And out of the corner of the room, right behind a filing cabinet that stored all the important files that Orochimaru sent, a little girl the same age as Naruto came out with a smile on her face, giggling to herself as she knew that she was caught by Orochimaru and then saw her brother playing in the corner and was about to go and play with him before Orochimaru got out of his chair and held out his hand to the little girl. She took it immediately and orochimaru turned to Naruto and said "Come on Naruto-kun." Naruto put down the kunai toy and saw his sister holding Orochimaru's hand and saw the snake sannin holding his other hand out to him. Naruto got out from his corner and walked up and grabbed Orochimaru's hand and the three walked out of the tent.

With each step they took, Orochimaru felt himself looking at the children and felt like he was betraying them by sending them to the Orphanage, he just felt his gut churn with every footstep, but continued to make more and more since this was the only option that he had.

They approached the Orphanage and once going inside, he asked one of the ladies if he could talk to the person in charge and once she came out, she looked at the two children and immediately scowled at them, before remembering the Hokage was watching her and she grew a smile but showed no teeth to show that it was real. "What is it you need Hokage-sama?" She asked, hoping it wasn't what she thought it was. "I am going to need to place these two under your care for now, however, I come back to pick them back up. I do not know when that will happen though, so can I trust that no harm comes to these children?"

"Why of course Hokage-sama?" The women said, although she was mentally crossing her fingers at his proposal. In her eyes, she saw two wolves clothed in sheeps skin that had somehow managed to allude her Hokage, but she knew better. She saw them for what they were and would make sure that they payed for every life they had taken that night, including their husbands.

Naruto and Himawari were studying the lady before them, and could already tell that she didn't like them already, they turned back to Orochimaru to plead with him to not let them go, but they saw that he was kneeling down to talk to them.

Orochimaru didn't know how much of this they would understand, but he would try and make it so they would understand that this was not permanent. "Naru-kun, Hima-chan, this lady is going to be taking care of you two for now. I have to leave, but I will come back for you guys, don't you worry, I will come back for you. Here, I'll give you this as proof of my promise to you that I'm coming to get you guys. Okay?" Orochimaru said as he performed some bit his hand and slammed it on the ground and made a white snake poof into existence.

The two twins looked uneasy at the snake at first, but as Orochimaru picked it up and showed them that it didn't bite, their attitude changed from nervous to happy as they petted the snake from his hands. Naruto then took the snake from his hands and the two looked back to the women, and saw that she was watching them with emotionless eyes that screamed "you can fool him, but you can't fool me you demons." Then back to the snake, and they nodded to Orochimaru, who in turn grew a smile on his face and rose up from the ground to face the lady.

"Okay you two, lets go and find your rooms okay?" She said kindly enough. With again, a smile that showed no teeth. As she left the room, Orochimaru could not help but think that what he just said had been his first promise ever. Suddenly, the weight on his shoulders seemed to strengthen tenfold, as if just the knowledge of knowing that his first promise was to these kids made him all the more frightened, but yet determined to make it back to them.

When she came back down the steps, she noticed that Orochimaru was dressed in his battle gear and now Shikaku was by his side and the two looked ready to head out to the western part of the village walls. "I thank you again for taking them in Lady-san." Orochimaru said, not even bothering to ask the women her name. The women looked offended by the nickname, but did not say anything about it and said "It's an honor Hokage-sama."

Orochmaru nodded and then tilted his head towards Shikaku, and the two began to head towards the door. Shikaku left first and right as Orochimaru was about to leave, he stopped for a second and turned back to the lady and said "Oh! And if I hear from the children that any intentional harm came upon them from you, I will personally hunt you down to make you a sacrifice to Manda. Do you understand?" Orochimaru said threateningly. The women, even though she had no idea who manda was, nodded her head in fear and turned away and began to walk back up the stairs towards the children again.

And with her last step up the stairs, Orochimaru left the building saying to the kids that could not hear him "I truly hope I live up to my promise."


	5. Ch 5 Fake Smiles and Real Sacrifices

**"False tears can only hurt others. False smiles only hurt yourself."**

 **-C.C (Code Geass)**

* * *

Ch. 5 Fake Smiles and Real Sacrifices

"Hurry nee-chan, Hurry go hide." Naruto said in a happy tone and a smile on his face. "And remember that you need to come out only when I say the magic words , alright?" Himawari nodded excitedly and did as she was told. She ran over to where she would always hide, there was this old floorboard in their house that she would lift up and go down under From there, she would crawl into the corner and wrap herself up in some of the blankets that she and Naruto kept in there for winter. But she couldn't help but feel special because today was her and Naruto's 4th birthday.

She loved to celebrate their birthday, though this would be her first birthday without Orochimaru, she felt sad at that, wondering if he would ever come back. But then she grew happy since she could remember clearly the promise that he had made to them and knew that he would come back to them one day. She also felt special since now they were away from that horrible Orphanage that they had been placed in. The lady there treated them horribly, she would influence the other kids not to talk to them, which resulted in them having to rely on each other for the most part. She would isolate them apart from any activity, including basic education which, even though they hated it, would welcome it with open arms if it meant they could play with the others. She would lock them in a closet and give them one bowl full of cold oatmeal and that would be their dinner. Their only source of light was a small whole that lead to the entrance to the building, which was illuminated by a small desk lamp. Naruto and Himawari hated this, both of them had too much energy to be cooped up in a small space like this, however, they grew out of it when they had learned that when they were stuck in the closet, nobody would or could know of what they were doing in there since no one ever went inside the closet. Naruto and Himawari quickly started hiding books and other things in the closet so that, even though they weren't included on any of the activities, they weren't falling behind. This lead to them being able to talk and read properly. They could write also, with only a few mistakes here and there and their penmanship being fairly sloppy, but for their age, was like sprinting to the finish line while the other kids were at a brisk walk.

But no matter how much they learned, they both hated it there, the only thing they could enjoy was Orochimaru's snake which they called Shiro (white) and they loved to play with the snake. At first, it was tough getting over the fear that the snake might bite them if they did something wrong. But, as time went on, the snake became their only friend outside of each other. However, it seemed that their friend was also a double edged sword since not all kids could overcome their fear of the serpent like Naruto and Himawari had, thus resulting in the kids keeping even more distance from the two of them. After they realized this, they had been tempted to get rid of their snake, but felt that the snake was their only connection to Orochimaru and had been their only friend and they couldn't bring themselves to do it.

The only good thing that had come out of their stay at the orphanage was discovering their favorite food. That was something that both twins would consider to be the best day of their lives since they had never discovered something so wonderful in all their short lives.

One night, when Naruto and Himawari had asked the head lady if she could make them something to eat since they had been the only ones who hadn't eaten the night before. The women merely said, "I have a headache, the last thing that I want to do is cook right now. But fine, there's a ramen shop down the street. Just leave me alone."

And with that, the two took the money that the women gave them and walked down the street to where the shop was. Himawari was helped up to her seat by Naruto, who in turn, was helped up by the waitress as saw that he wasn't tall enough to get up on his own. The waitress had a slender figure and dark brown hair held with a large white bandanna with large black eyes that, unlike the women who was supposed to take care of them, showed nothing but kindness and warmth. "Thank you ma'am." Naruto said, which made the waitresses eyes slightly larger from how mature the young boy seemed. But quickly passed it off and brought back her smile and said "None of this ma'am business, I'm not even 20 yet. I don't need someone making me feel old, just call me Ayame, now what can I get you two kiddies hmm?"

They both asked for a menu, which Ayame gave them, and both started to read about the ingredients and wonder how they all tasted. As their eyes wondered to each ingredient after another, they got more and more excited. They had never eaten any of the items on the menu and now they had a chance to satisfy their curiosity for now. While they were reading over the menu, Ayame was wondering how the two of them could read already, as well as why there seemed to be no one that she could count as a parental figure for these two so she asked "Where are your guys' parents?"

The two stopped for a moment and looked at each other and just stared until Naruto said "We don't know, ever since we can remember, we had Orochimaru take care of us, then a couple of months ago, he dropped us off so that he could help out with the war."

Ayame was taken back even more as she had just heard that these kids had been partially raised by the Hokage himself. She also saddened by the fact that neither of them knew who their parents were, but she could faintly remember a striking resemblance that the boy had to somebody that she knew. But for the life of her, she could not identify the person she was thinking of. She cursed herself since she couldn't even remember someone who had red hair in the village, even though this kid had been the second one she had seen in her life, that part she knew for sure She then remembered that she had not asked the kids their names and thought that might give her a hint. "So I've told you two my name, what do I call you guys?"

Himawari almost immediately screamed out "I'm Himawari!" since this was, by far, the longest conversation she and her brother had had in all their days staying in the orphanage. "I'm Naruto!" Her brother said with the same enthusiasm as his sister. Ayame smiled, though she cursed herself again by not recognizing any connections to anyone she knew, and said "Well Naruto and Himawari, do you guys know what you would like?" Still excited, the two children shook their heads with a clueless, but overjoyed, no. "We've never had this food before, so whatever is fine." Naruto said, already wishing for the food to arrive in front of him.

"Okay, two miso ramens for you two coming right up." Ayame said as she wrote the order on her pad and disappeared to the back to prepare their order.

While they were waiting, two men came to the booth and sat right up next to them. They were both bulky, but not overly so, but as they walked, Naruto saw one man had a rather large limp in his step and in fact needed help sitting himself onto the bar stools and the other man was missing his left arm starting from his elbow.

The man with a limp in his step had little to no hair at all on his head and a somewhat stern expression, like he could smile, but only if he trusted you enough to put his guard down. He had no cane to hold onto as he walked, but anyone with eyes could tell that it would definitely help him. He wore a light brown version of the average civilian robes, but had a slight bulge in his limping leg, suggesting that he had bandages over his leg.

The other man had a mop of almost black hair swaying back and forth as he walked, with a rough shadow on his lower face that suggested that he either didn't care how he looked any more or hadn't bothered shaving. His face would be considered friendly to most, but was marred with an angry expression that almost screamed 'why me!' and was still looking for an answer. His clothes were similar in every way except color to his partner, as his were a very dark blue, with the sleeve tied into a knot where his arm was severed.

The men had a passing glance towards the kids, but ignored them as they focused again on their own conversation. Naruto and Himawari, both lost in their own imagination of having a new food, were fine with this as they waited for their food.

Ayame came back with their two bowls and placed them down right in front of them, and saw the two kids thank her and they looked at it. Then they looked for any forks or something they could use to try and eat the soup, but saw nothing but a box full of sticks. They each took a pair of chopsticks hesitantly, and saw the line in the middle and Naruto pulled them apart and put a sad expression on his face. "I"m sorry. I broke these sticks by accident." He said as he showed them to her. Ayame gave a slight giggle before saying "That's alright Naruto-kun, they're actually supposed to do that. Here hold them like this." She put them in his hands and quickly instructed the two on how to use chopsticks. But then stopped as she noticed that the two men seemed rather annoyed at her neglecting them. "What can I get you guys today?" She said with the same kindness as she had when talking to Naruto and Himawari. The two men placed their order and she went into the back to prepare their food.

While they waited, the man with a limp looked over to the twins and gave a slight smile as he noticed the twins still trying getting used to using chopsticks. They both fumbled around with them, until Himawari seemed to get it first, and upon showing Naruto how to do it, the two began dining like crazy.

It seemed that Naruto was too excited as he tipped the bowl and had it come crashing down on him, causing him to scream out in pain and start grabbing his shirt. Himawari started laughing at her brother in pain while he quickly lifted his shirt so he could take it off to relieve the pain. He threw his shirt on his chair and quickly grabbed his napkin so he could start wiping himself down. After he had wiped all the broth of his body, he looked over to his shirt on the chair and grew a frown as he realized he might need to go without a shirt for the night.

The men who had looked over saw his predicament and said "Hey kid, come and bring that shirt over here." Naruto did as he was told, despite never meeting these men before. As he brought the shirt to the man, he pushed it back and he told Naruto "Hold it up carefully, and be careful where you put your fingers, this could get a little hot."

Again, Naruto obeyed the man and he heard a couple of words that he didn't exactly understand the meaning of and felt his shirt grow a little hot and adjusted his fingers a bit as they grew too hot for them to stay, and as the heat died down, Naruto brought the shirt back down and saw that where the wet stain on his shirt now completely dry. There was still a stain, but he knew that could be removed any time. Himawari looked up at the man and said "How did you _do_ that?!" Even now, she still couldn't understand what she had seen, she had seen the man move his hand in motions she couldn't recognize and then spit out small flames from his mouth!

"What, that old trick? That was just a weak fire jutsu that I knew." The man replied, obviously loving the excitement and wonder he had sparked within the children.

"What's a jutsu?" Naruto asked, already dead set on learning whatever it was. "A jutsu is an ability that most shinobi have, they summon chakra to a certain point in their body and are capable of doing all kinds of different things."

"What's chakra?" Himawari asked, both her and her brother soaking up all the knowledge they were learning. "Chakra is what gives us the ability to do these things, it's the life force in all living things." The man replied, knowing that he was going to be playing 20 questions with these kids because of what he had done, but accepted it as he still loved the looks on their faces. The man sitting next to him however did not share their enthusiasm as he looked at them with a semi-bored expression on his face.

"How do you summon chakra mister...?"

"Katsumoto, and come here, It's better if I show you."

Naruto quickly rushed over to the man while he put his shirt on his shoulder to lay for now, and the man grabbed his hands and put them in the correct position. "Now what?" Naruto asked. "Now visualize in your head a ball. Connected to that ball is a piece of string. Clear out everything in your mind. Now, do you have it in mind?"

Naruto closed his eyes and focused on imagining a ball with a string just like he had been told. "I got it." He said once he saw it. "Now, grab the string, and once you have a hold on it, pull the ball towards you as hard as you can." Naruto nodded and tried to do as he was told and grabbed hold of it. Once he had hold of it, he started pulling and pulling. After a while, nothing seemed to be happening, but then, he started feeling something, it felt like when he would try and grab something from Himawari and they would be in a tug-of-war until he won when she finally let go. He felt this strange and awe-some power suddenly begin flowing through him and opened his eyes and saw that the man was straitening his hair and noticed that the others were doing the same and that even Himawari was cleaning up a mess right next to her bowl with a couple of napkins that were floating in the air. "What did I do?"

The man readjusted himself and said "That was the biggest chakra wave I've ever felt! That was awesome kid. High five!" Naruto, only understanding that he had done something awesome, turned and high fived the man and went to go sit down and finish his meal again, until the man with the missing arm looked over and said "Wait kid. Turn here." Naruto turned and saw the mans eyes close in on his still exposed stomach. He looked down as well and saw an intricate pattern that almost seemed to be drawn on on his stomach and almost shouted as she screamed "What is this thing!" The missing armed man looked at his partner and gave him a glare that suggested something, but the other one shook his head vehemently.

"Oh, that's nothing kid... just... put your shirt back on and don't tell anyone what you saw. Enjoy your meal kids." the man said as Ayame was coming back out with their food. Naruto once again did as instructed and lost himself in the heavenly food that was ramen as well as Himawari, who had been watching the entire thing and had also wondered what that thing on her brothers stomach was. Their worries disappeared however the moment their chopsticks touched their tongues. They looked over and saw that the men seemed in quite a hurry to finish their food and once they did, they placed their money on the counter and walked away.

Naruto and Himawari didn't think anything of this as they had ordered another bowl

then another...

...Then another.

They had just finished their fifth bowl when Naruto came to his senses and worried that they might be able to pay the complete amount as he remembered that the head lady didn't give them a lot of money. He brought out the money and counted it all and of course he came up short, he also realized that he would have still come up short had they stuck with their single bowls. As he grew angrier, he looked at Ayame and said "I'm sorry Ayame-chan, but we don't have enough money to pay you guys, our Orphanage mother only gave us this much. Here you go." He gave her all the money he had and Ayame couldn't help but sadden as she saw the once infectious smiles on the twins faces fade to a more down to earth melancholy expression. "You know what, because you guys are so nice and have enjoyed my cooking more than anyone I've met. I'll let this one be on the house." She said and saw the infectious smiles immediately return as they started shouting

"You're the best Ayame-chan!"

"Thank you Ayame-chan!"

"We love you Ayame-chan!"

Not wanting their adoration to get to her head, she gave them another smile and said "I know I know, just promise me you guys will come back with enough money next time. Deal?"

"DEAL!" They both shouted. After thanking her one more time, the two decided to return back to the orphanage, all the while thinking that no day could ever top this one.

What they didn't know was what was going on after the two men left the bar.

"What are you saying Katsumoto? We finally know who one of the beasts is, and a good guess as to who the second one is. How could we keep something this big a secret?" The man with the missing arm said.

"Easily Ujio, as long as you don't go babbling to the others like you always do." Katsumoto replied. When they left the bar, the man identified as Ujio suggested, once they were far enough, that they go and tell everyone that they knew who contained one of the two tailed beasts in the village. They could also say that there was a chance they knew who contained the second. Both men knew that the hate for the beasts was high and that most people in the village would jump at the chance to finally get back at them for the destruction of the village as well as drawing out this war for far longer than anyone had ever wanted. Knowing this, Ujio was immediately rejected by Katsumoto, who suggested that they keep what they saw to themselves and never speak of it again.

"I don't _always_ go babbling, but that's not the point. The _point_ is that we have a chance to make lemonade with the lemons that we have."

"But why do we absolutely _have_ to? why make that child's life miserable when he doesn't even know why?"

"You want to know why! Look at your fucking leg! That's why! Look at the damn war were _still_ fucking fighting! That's why! Look at my FUCKING ARM! THAT'S WHY! IT'S ALL BECAUSE OF THEM, IF THOSE BEASTS HADN'T ATTACKED OUR VILLAGE, NONE OF THIS WOULD HAVE HAPPENED!"

"No, I know that we were both robbed of our chance to become greater shinobi, but..."

"EXACTLY! We were both well on our way to joining the Anbu, and what happened?! Those beasts destroyed every building they saw and sent a piece of fucking glass straight at my arm! And what happened to you?! You had your leg run through-"

"I KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO ME! But is that their fault? two kids who don't even remember that day? Those same two kids we saw who didn't even know how to form chakra? Who didn't even know how to hold a fucking pair of CHOPSTICKS for Kami's sake. FUCKING CHOPSTICKS! My shinobi career maybe over, but at least I'm able to accept that! You! you self-righteous prick are still trying to rejoin the corps and regain your 'honor' that you complain about being stolen EVERY. SINGLE. FUCKING. DAY."

"Because I was going to be great! You knew that! But those demons took it away from me! So go ahead, be a cripple for the rest of your life! But I will tell everyone and I _will_ make sure that those responsible will pay for their sins!"

"You hurt that kid, I swear I-"

"You'll what? Limp over and try to save a demon, maybe even two, from probably _hundreds_ of people who want justice done!"

"IF THAT'S WHAT IT TAKES!"

Ujio was a bit taken back when he heard his friend proclaim that. He had been hoping to have his friend by his side as they punished the two demons. Or at least deter him once he found out that he was so protective of them. But after his proclamation, he knew it wouldn't be, and as he realized that, he grew angry at his friend, thinking that his friend had betrayed him for a wolf who had been able to lure him with his sheep's clothing.

"How could you be so protective of a kid you just met today! You met him less than an hour ago and now your choosing him over me! YOUR BEST FRIEND SINCE CHILDHOOD!"

"BECAUSE BOTH THOSE CHILDREN ARE INNOCENT! AND I WILL NOT LET THEIR BLOOD BE SPILT ALL BECAUSE YOU HAVE A CHIP ON YOUR SHOULDER!"

And with that, Katsumoto turned and began limping away, while Ujio, more mad then ever, turned and began running back home so he could prepare for his revenge.

* * *

Once Naruto and Himawari had gotten back to the orphanage, they immediately started trying to study the drawing that was on Naruto's stomach, but once he took his shirt off, he saw that the drawing was gone. Himawari had suggested that it could have been because he had that weird chakra wave that the man had talked about. Naruto then tried to summon his chakra again, he imagined his chakra again in his mind like he had before. He found it easier to pull the ball again and when he opened his eyes again, he looked down and saw the drawing appear on his stomach again. Now that they had a better look at it, they couldn't help but notice that it looked exactly like an eye. Except there were these strange markings that appeared around the eye, surrounding it on all sides. After a while, the seal disappeared again, with Himawari wondering what would happen if she were to do it.

Himawari remembered the words the man said to Naruto and imagined the ball and string. Another chakra wave occurred when she felt the ball finally give and come into her reach. She opened her eyes and saw Naruto staring at her with wide eyes as if thinking "THAT'S what that was!" She pulled her shirt up over her stomach and sure enough, she saw another drawing on her stomach, although hers wasn't the same as her brothers was. Instead of an eye, hers was a swirl that was encircled by eight little sticks. Although they did still see the strange markings appear as well, leaving them both to wonder what they meant.

Days passed and both tried to understand what the drawing on their stomachs meant, they both knew that asking anyone would sound crazy and make them lonelier than they already were, if that was possible. So instead, they went into the library, and tried to grab as many books about chakra as they could hold. But they were stopped by the librarian who said that those books were for students at the academy only and that they weren't old enough yet. This left Naruto and Himawari in the dark since they could not think of any other place to go to. They did learn that if they went into the academy they could learn about chakra and even learn those jutsus that the man had talked about, but thinking about waiting any more amount of time left a sour feeling for both Naruto and Himawari as both had hoped that they could some day soon leave the orphanage.

Then, one day Naruto came to her and told her that they could leave. She was so excited, she picked up Shiro and held him tight to her chest due to her excitement, it was almost like something out of a dream for her, but she knew that she wasn't dreaming. She packed her things along with Naruto and the two were heading out the door, Himawari left the door first, and before he exited, Naruto looked to his left and gave the women a cold glare to which she gave her own.

"So, not enough room huh?" Naruto asked. The women nodded her head and said "Yup, because of the war, more and more kids are becoming orphans, I just can't afford to keep you two around anymore."

"That's funny" Naruto said "Because I heard that a new Orphanage was being opened up down a couple blocks from here, it's supposed to be bigger and a lot nicer than this place. And wouldn't you know it, I heard from a couple that had left with their new son that the person that is the owner of this new building just so happens to be you."

The women scowled at Naruto before starting to say "Yeah well, yo-" That was all Naruto heard before he walked out the door to interrupt her. Naruto didn't care for any excuse she might have said, though with Naruto's experience with the women, she would have most likely just insulted him. He didn't know why she hated him or Himawari, since neither could remember them doing anything that could warrant any anger towards them.

Naruto saw Himawari waiting for him and he gave her a smile to show her that nothing was wrong. But in his mind, he didn't know where to go from here. He had hoped that Orochimaru would come and get them by now, it had been 8 months since he left them in the care of that women and he had not recieved any word if he was even alive anymore. So Naruto just told Himawari to follow him and the two set off to explore the village, it was the middle of the night so no one saw them wondering around. They kept wondering around, with Naruto getting more and more worried that they would not find a place to stay the night. It was too late outside for anyone to be up, so all the doors locked and the lights were off, showing that nobody was there for them.

Naruto and Himawari kept walking and walking. Passing building by building. And as time passed, Himawari was beginning to get worried that they wouldn't have any place to stay for the night, if at all. But she didn't say anything as she put her trust into her brother, who had always proven himself to be the one she could look to when she ever needed to help.

Although, Naruto was also worrying since as they passed through the village, he also couldn't see anyplace that they could stay in. And then, when he focused his eyes to see through the darkness the night was showering them with, he saw what might be there salvation. He wasn't sure, because for the most part, he could see that whatever it was was hidden behind a rather well forested area. From this, he knew that they were heading towards the wall that encased the entire village. But in between the trees, he saw something, he had no idea what, but he headed towards it none the less.

As they got closer, Naruto was able to make out more features as to what it was. And as he did, he got more and more certain that they had finally gotten a break since he was more sure that what it was was an abandoned house. They reached the building and found the door was unlocked. The house wasn't much, about the size of a hunting shack. There were three rooms total, with the kitchen being a small area in the living room. There was only one bed, but it was big enough for the both of them to share for now. Himawari set Shiro down so that he could begin hunting for all the creatures that she and Naruto were sure were in the building with them. As they saw the bed, they both recognized how tired they both were and Himawari opted for just plopping down onto the bed and immediately falling asleep. Naruto dropped his stuff and was about to join his sister, but was halted as he saw their snake come slithering into the room as fast as it could.

Wondering what could cause the snake to react like that. Naruto came out to the living room and saw nothing in there. He looked up and down and saw no sign of any rat, insect, or other animal. He was just about to go back to the bedroom, but then he heard something outside. He opened the door and looked around. But immediately regretted it as he was grabbed by the neck and thrown onto the ground. He looked around and saw a group of men towering over him and noticed that one of them only had one arm, but saw that it ended from the shoulder. The man also seemed to have a limp in his step, but he didn't have a lot of time to focus on it though as he saw the man came up to him and stomped his foot onto his stomach. Naruto would have screamed out in pain, but was unable to as the breath left his body.

"Do you know how long I've wanted to that? You fucking demon." The man said. "You have caused us so much trouble. You even turned my best friend against me. But no matter, I've dealt with him, and now there's no one else here to help you." The man said with an evil grin. Naruto cowered away from the man and tried to crawl away, but was stopped by a foot planting itself onto his side from the other men that accompanied the injured one, causing him to almost scream out in pain again, but it was muffled by a hand. "No no no, there are still people asleep, you wouldn't want to wake them up now would you? Well of course you would, turn more people to try and help you with that 'innocent child' bullshit. But know this, I don't know if that girl your with is the other demon with you and I don't exactly have a way of finding out, but if you make one noise that makes her come out here, I will not hesitate to bring her here with you. You wouldn't want _that,_ would you?"

Naruto's eyes widened, but then tears started to fill his eyes as the men began to punish the 'demon' for all the sins he had committed. But, even as each punch came into contact with his face, or after every kick to his stomach, Naruto refused to make a sound, all the while thinking of what they would do to Himawari if he did. And that thought was enough to keep his silence as the men continued to make the young boy their personal MMA bag. He caught a punch to the face that almost caused him to blackout, and then a kick to his stomach that caused him to wake up as he lost breath yet again. But before he could regain his breath, a pair of hands began to strangle him as the others continued their onslaught."Stop!" The man said after a while, all the men refused to do so for a while, all of them getting caught in the euphoria of finally getting their revenge. Naruto's face began to turn purple as the mans grip tightened around his neck. "Stop!" The man said once more. This got their attention as the man loosened his hands around Naruto's throat. Causing Naruto to gasp as he finally got air into his lungs again. The men looked at their leader, all of them thinking what they did wrong. But before they could ask, the leader reached into his pocket and brought out a piece of metal. He then pulled on it a little bit and the piece of metal he had turned into a switchblade. He crouched next to the bruised and beaten Naruto and placed the knife onto his cheek, putting just enough pressure to make the bruise on his cheek start to bleed. "Don't think for a minute that we are done with you. Even after we leave here today, you will be breathing. But we will come back here. Every week, at this time, we will come here. We will always have eyes looking at you so don't you dare try to run. If you run, we kill both you and that girl. Now, stay still so I can work on my new masterpiece."

It took everything Naruto had to stop himself from screaming.

* * *

Naruto woke up early that morning, and saw that the cuts, bruises, lacerations, and other injuries that had littered every corner of his body the night before had somehow disappeared. He breathed a sigh of relief as he though that he had just been dreaming, but just to make sure, he walked outside to the place he had been, and saw rain coming down from the sky. And as he looked down onto the ground, he saw a red stream beginning to disappear from the ground. That gave Naruto all the information he needed to know that what he experienced was no dream at all. The worry returned tenfold as he realized that he could never leave this house and had to be careful about what he did with Himawari, if she channeled chakra and they saw the seal on her stomach, they would come after her as well.

The bloody stream disappeared from the ground, and as the last remnants of it left the ground. He turned around and saw Himawari coming out of the bedroom, rubbing her eyes as she was still tired. She stared at her brother for a moment, before saying "Nii-san, are you alright? You look like you've been up all night"

For a moment, Naruto was tempted to tell her what had happened to him the night before. But stopped as he knew she would do the same thing he had done last night if it meant he could stay safe. Not wanting to take that chance, he grew a smile on his face to hide how sad he was at their predicament and said "Yeah, I feel great Nee-chan. Go back to bed."


	6. Ch 6 The Night is Darkest

**Chapters Quote: "You can close your eyes to the things you do not want to see, but you cannot close your heart to the things you do not want to feel."  
**

 **-Johnny Depp**

* * *

Ch. 6 The Night is Darkest...

"Hurry nee-chan, hurry go hide." Naruto said in a happy tone with a smile on his face. "And remember that you need to come out only when I say the magic words, alright?" Himawari nodded and excitedly and did as she was told.

As she disappeared to her usual hiding spot. Naruto ran over towards the window, the smile disappearing from his face and saw that the sun was almost down and that _they_ would be here soon enough. He knew of course where Himawari was hiding and had actually made the hiding spot himself since he wanted to make sure that his visitors never saw him. That was what he feared most of all, he didn't care how badly they would beat him, how many times they called him degrading names, he didn't care about any of that. Just knowing that his sister wasn't harmed at all was the only thing that was able to keep him silent.

Of course, Naruto wished that he could spend his and his sisters' 4th birthday in a more conventional way, but Naruto knew that wasn't going to happen anytime soon. In Naruto's eyes, the only way that would happen is if Orochimaru came back. This was something that Naruto doubted since it had been 11 months and Orochimaru hadn't even sent them any word of any sort. Himawari hadn't given up hope that Orochimaru was still alive, and Naruto also believed this, but had been skeptical and had been preparing for the worst since. The worst being trying to tell his sister. Naruto wasn't sure if he would be able to cause any sort of sadness onto Himawari, it just didn't feel human in his eyes. Especially after his visitors started coming, then he had grown another resolve to keep her happy no matter what.

Naruto shook his head from his thoughts and noticed that the sun had gone down. And not a second to soon, he heard footsteps coming towards the house. He steeled himself once more and walked towards the door slowly. He opened it and was immediately grabbed and thrown onto the floor again. With a brief look, he saw that there seemed to be more members this time around. This was something that Naruto had begun to notice lately as the gang was now almost double what it used to be. "I see you've healed up since last night, great! Now that just means that we get to try and break new ground in finding something that lasts!" The leader of the gang said. That had been something they had been keen on finding, with what weapon could they use to make a mark that scared on his skin.

He closed his eyes and began waiting for his beating, which came in the form of an escrima stick striking his stomach while he recieved kicks from his back. Tears immediately began to fill his eyes. Then he saw the leader grab his favorite weapon that he always sed which was a switchblade and strike at his arm, making a big gash from his elbow to his wrist. He wanted to cry out, for someone. Anyone to come and help him, but no one came. He barely heard someone unfastening something and began to feel the sting of a belt buckle, then he heard something coming out of it's sheath, and was met with slash across his stomach. By now he was staggering on his feet, moving away from one just to be met with another. Tears began flowing down his face like a waterfall, but yet he refused to cry out. But he could feel his resolve crumbling though as the pain began to grow more and more as the gang began to grow tired of using their fists and wanted to break out all of their new toys on their plaything. Naruto's will was crumbling, he was so close to crying out in pain. It was unbearable at this point. The men had seemed to have had enough of their fists and all of them had their weapons out now. Though he couldn't see them, he could feel them. On top of the escrima, knife, and belt, Naruto could feel a blunt object which he guessed to be a club, which was currently being used to pelt his stomach which made him throw up any food he had earlier, a blunted blade that despite how blunt it was, was still being used to try and cut his skin which made it all the more worse for him, fists that seemed to have something on them that made the impact of his punches worse than ever, and last was a long thing metal rod that Naruto guessed to be the blunt side of a sword. All of these together was making his willpower crumble like a house of cards. Naruto had just opened his mouth going "AA!-" before one of the men hit him over with the club, saving Naruto from causing any harm to come to his sister as well as rendering him unconscious.

* * *

Naruto's Mind-scape

Naruto woke up and saw that he wasn't outside his apartment anymore. In fact, he didn't even recognize where he was as he had never seen a place like this before. It seemed to be some sort of cave, with a circular shape to it that was made from some sort of volcanic rock that Naruto didn't know the name of. There was a low red light that Naruto didn't know where it was coming from, but it was just enough to illuminate everything around him. Naruto wiped some sweat from his forehead and noticed that he wasn't hurt in anyway, something he was thankful for, but that just made him all the more curious as to where he was. He looked around and saw that he was in a sort of central hub of the cave. He stood in a circular area, with nine caves all around him. Naruto knowing where to go, Naruto chose to go the cave straight before him. He began walking, as he walked he looked at the cave walls and saw different pictures which seemed to be part of a story. As he looked at them, he saw that some pictures were a lot more colorful than others. Some were also more hazy and fuzzy, like they never got the full picture of what happened. As he gave more attention to them, he saw that in fact, they were pictures of his own life. He saw the time when he and Himawari first had ramen, which was fully shown with no signs of surrealism and had the most color out of all of them. Then he saw his first beating, which made him flinch. This one was fully shown, but had no color at all, just clear black and white. Naruto wondered at what this would mean, but any theories he had escaped his mind as he started to see a light at the end of the cave. Deciding that he had had enough of this, he began running towards the light and spared a few glances at the wall. When he saw that he was at the present of his life, with the beating he had currently been in before he was here. The beating was like the others, clear and black and white with no color what so ever.

He reached the end, and immediately had to grab the edge of the cave wall as he was exposed to a giant lava pit. He stared at the lava pit and saw how giant it all was. Like everything else, the lava seemed to be filled in a circular cavern. What caught his eye however, was a black something in the middle of the circle.

He tried squinting to see what it was, but it didn't help at all. He wanted to get closer to it, but there was no more floor beneath him. Until, he felt a rumble beneath him and looked down and saw that column pieces rock were coming up towards him. He backed up, afraid that something might happen, but they stopped right before the mouth of the cave, giving him more room to walk. He threw a spare rock at the column to test that it was stable. Then he took a hesitant foot and placed it on the floor of the step, and nothing happened. He put his full weight on, and felt more rumbling.

Naruto quickly backed up to the cave, but saw that the rumbling was just more columns coming out and creating more steps for him. He stepped back onto the column and continued walking with hesitant feet, all the while wondering where he was going and where he was in general. As he saw that he was approaching the black spot he had seen earlier, his pace quickened slightly to try and see what it was. When he finally got a good look at the spot, he almost wanted to run all the way back up to where the cave was, but saw that the columns were falling back into the lava, leaving behind no trail and falling back into the lava with no splashes of any kind.

So, only seeing one path to go, Naruto continued towards the beast that he saw. The columns began to rise a little, and they came to a stop right by the beasts face, giving Naruto a grand look at the beast. The beast was easily as big as the Hokage Monument, maybe even bigger if that was possible. It was orange in color, with black spots of fur on it's face. What was the defining feature of this beast however, was that it had nine tails in total. Despite it's angry appearance, Naruto wasn't worried for one good reason.

The entire beast was completely pinned down to the rock it laid on.

Giant chains wrapped around the Kyuubi's neck, hands, stomach, and legs. They dug into the rock and came out into the pegs that dug into the beasts' nine tails and dug into the ground again, only to come up and repeat the process with each individual tail. As was the case for his hands and feet.

The beast turned its head the most it could to turn towards Naruto. As they locked eyes, Naruto stared into the beasts giant red eyes and began to fear for his very life, the beast chained or not. The killing intent that was coming off the beast was incredible. Naruto had to use everything he had just to stay on his own two feet. "Hi I'm Uzumaki Naruto." He said in a fragile and small voice, though he began growing more confident as time went on and he realized he was still alive.

 **"So, my jailer has finally come to visit me. What is it that you want?"** The beast said in, while a very deep voice, wasn't as deep as Naruto was expecting. "Where am I right now? and who are you?" Naruto asked, seeing if he could find any answers. **"Are you stupid kit! What do you think that mark on you and your sisters stomach is! As for who I am, you don't need to know that do you?"** The beast bellowed at the redhead. Naruto continued to stare at the beast, specifically the bonds that were holding it in place.

"Who did this to you?" Naruto said, seeing how it was being held, it reminded him of how he was being treated not too long before he came here. It made him feel sorry for the beast, since they were in the same boat. As far as he knew, this beast hadn't done anything wrong, but was still being treated so barbarically. As he thought about helping the beast, he felt a massive rumbling, and saw that the pegs were coming out of the ground and the chains unwrapping themselves from the beast. Once free, the beast sprang up and tried to strike at the boy, but found a chain come back up and wrap itself around its arm and restrain it again. **"Curse these stupid chains! One day boy, one day I will end you!"**

"What did I ever do to you?" Naruto asked, feeling like even though they could help each other, he was still going to be rejected for something that he had no knowledge of. **"All you humans are the same! You take what you want no matter what it is to try and fulfill your own agenda."** The beast replied. This made Naruto feel a bit better as he wasn't being singled out in this conversation like he suspected. Before he could say anything however, the beast spoke first and said **"There is nothing else that I will say to the likes of you now be gone!"** All around him, Naruto could feel the entire cave rumbling, and before he knew it, he was back on the street outside.

* * *

Kirigakure

"So what you're telling me right now is that even with all of our sources, we can't find where the Yondaime OR the Sandaime Hokage are?"

"Um..y-yes Mizukage-sama."

"This is unacceptable! We have dozens of scouts looking over Hi no Kuni for them and you're saying they can't find two men?"

"Y-yes Mizukage-sama, but there is good news sir."

"... Well don't just stand there! Tell me!"

" It is regarding the Jinchuriki you wanted us to look for sir. Though we haven't been able to get any of our scouts into the village, one of our scouts outside the village says he has seen one group of men go to the same place at the same time every night. They drag a boy out of that house and beat him. We think that this boy is the Sanbi jinchuriki that we have been looking for sir. And the best part is we know that after the Bijuu attack on Konoha, the Yondaime Hokage cared for both jinchuriki personally for three years. They must know everything there is to know in the village. They've seen every plan, every map, every strategy they've ever thought of doing. They also probably know the positions of all of their ninja."

The Mizukage smiled at this information. This sounded like an opportunity gifted to him on a silver platter, just waiting for him to act on it. All he needed to do was get the jinchuriki and retrieve the information through any means necessary. Though they were out of the war, declaring themselves neutral, they were still collecting information on Konoha to give to the other villages in hopes that they could finish the job. However, the squads of ninja that defended the village were hidden, especially the squads that had the Yondaime and the Sandaime, every day there would be reports of them being in 20 different places at once, doing the same activities in all 20 so they couldn't rule any out.

"How do you propose we enter the village? The whole thing is surrounded by squads of shinobi. Some of which we don't know where they are." The Mizukage said while pointing to the map that was a map of Konoha and had certain positions around the walls marked with red 'X.'

"That's the best part. We don't have to get our hands dirty Mizukage-sama. No other village knows as much as we do. Our plan is we tell Iwa and Kumo the positions that we do know, so they can attack these forces as one. There is also the chance that the Hokage's will be there since they will most likely know the attack is coming like the others. And in all the mayhem, our shinobi sneak in, take the jinchuriki and sneak out."

The Mizukage thought about the plan and couldn't help but smile. Ever since they had gotten rid of their jinchuriki, he knew that they were the weakest out of all five hidden villages since they hadn't been able to locate where the hanabi (six tails) was; it had been missing ever since one of their shinobi had taken it out of the village. On top of the fact that the Mizukage knew that the common conception of Kiri was that it was already the weakest village, despite having quite a few powerhouses and Konoha having been attacked. Normally, the Mizukage could ignore these sorts of claims by having knowledge of how strong it actually was. Now though, the village was going through a depression as a lot of their shinobi had died during the war and they had lost trade with Mizu no kuni (water country) because of the fact that they had entered the war and they had no interest in involving themselves with the war period. Mizu no Kuni also happened to be one of the only ports that Kiri had access to because of how far away they were in comparison to other villages. This of course put them in a very bad spot since they could not grow their own food very well due to the fact that their soil had too much water.

As he thought more and more about the state that his village was in, the more angry and desperate he got. His country, his home, his shinobi were all in danger from attack. Without protection, they had a very high chance of being attacks by Konoha or Kumo, though Konoha was very unlikely; but since he didn't know where either Hokage's were, he couldn't rule it out. "Go through with the attack. Alert Iwa and Kumo, tell them what you told me, they have no idea how they rotate their shinobi. This should give them enough incentive to help us out."

"Yes sir Mizukage-sama."

* * *

"Do you have to go Gale-kun?" A female voice said as she wrapped her arms around the torso of a man.

"You know that I have to, now that we're finally stable here, I need to find others and bring them here. Who knows what they are going through right now. It's only right."

"I know, it's just that without your chakra-" The woman said as she unwrapped her arms so she could speak to the mans face.

"We've been through this before. Chakra isn't what makes the shinobi. Besides-"

"Yes, I know you have your other _specialties_ to rely on, but I'm your wife; it's my job to worry about you."

" And my job as your husband is to prove you wrong by coming back here, alive and well, hopefully with people who can come back home."

"How long do you think you'll be gone for?"

"I'll probably return in about a months time."

"Alright, no more than a month. Promise me."

"...I Promise." The man said though some doubt was in his voice.

* * *

6 days later

"Orochimaru-sama, we've just recieved a package for you." A ninja with a senbon in his mouth said as he handed out the package to the hokage. Orochimaru looked up from his desk, which was just a fallen log, and read how the letter was addressed. On the front of it, it read:

 _Orochimaru- Sannin and Hokage of Konoha_

 _Just for your convenience  
I've set up a special greeting  
Read this and I hope it entertains you  
And this is my first book, so tell me what you think  
I've left the address on the back of this.  
Your's truly,  
Akira Kiken_

Orochimaru stared at the long paragraph written on the gift and immediately knew who it was actually from. He let out an annoyed groan as he saw that the writer wasn't even trying to be subtle since all he had to do was look at the first letter at the beginning of every sentence and saw that it spelled _Jiraiya_ as well as the fact that Kiken meant _danger._ He opened up the gift, and to his small surprise actually saw that his teammate had in fact written a book. The cover read 'Tales of a Gutsy Ninja' though there was no name to it as far as he could see. He turned the envelope over and saw that it said "Leave me be."

He understood what he was trying to say. So he looked up at Genma and said "Tell everyone that at the moment I am indisposed, then return to your post, we leave come nightfall."

The ninja left and as he opened the tent to leave, a toad hopped into the tent. As Orochimaru was well aware of Jiraiya's... interesting modes for transportation, he knew what to expect as he saw the orange toad open it's mouth, only for two clearly human hands to pop out of it's mouth. Orochimaru continued watching in disgust as he saw his teammate continue to emerge out of the small little toad. A being coming out of the insides of another being, _who does that?_

As soon as Jiraiya was out of the toad and the greenish color fled from Orochimaru's face, the two looked at each other with Orochimaru saying "What is it you need to tell me?"

Jiraiya looked hurt since this was the first time that he had seen his teammate in quite some time and all he could talk about was business. Of course Orochimaru noticed this, but business came before pleasure so he said nothing to him. "My spy network recently reported that they have seen messengers from Kiri go to Kumo as well as Iwa, I believe that we are going to be having a big fight on our hands."

"We. I assume you are going to be in this fight with us?"

"Yes. I've spent too much time away from this war. I knew I needed to come back when the Bijuu's attacked, but I couldn't live with myself if those three kids got hurt so I taught them what I could."

"Well, have you found out why the sudden push? Kiri's been out of the war for quite some time now, why would they enter it again? It makes no sense."

"That's the part I'm not sure on. My network wasn't able to kidnap one of the messengers. But, I do know that if this all goes right, this could be the end of the war."

"Thank you Jiraiya, give any information you can about anything related to the attack to Shikaku Nara, he's leading the strategy tactics right now. Go out and get any more information about this attack if you can, we need specifics, I also want you to leave this toad here in case we need you. Dismissed."

Jiraiya nodded his head and was beginning to walk out the door when he heard Orochimaru say "Also Jiraiya." He turned his head to look at his teammate who said "It's nice to see you again." In a normal situation, this would cause a surprising smile from someone, but for Jiraiya's case, all he knew was the surprise. After years of his teammate being closed and cut off from everyone, he not only shows a feeling that only humans get, but he also stressed that he actually _missed_ him. Orochimaru had never shown that he had any relative attachment to anyone before, but now he was talking like he was used to it by now. Making Jiraiya wonder what had happened to him these past couple of years.

His mind continued to dwell on this matter as he left the tent so that Orochimaru could continue with his own situation. Orochimaru had looked away from Jiraiya to continue working, all the while wondering for the millionth time that day if Naruto and Himawari were alright. Are they happy? Are they being fed? Are they alive? As the war progressed, Orochimaru's worrying only increased. It had gotten so bad that he would try to find anything to try and preoccupy his mind or else his mind would drift off into a world of What if's. This was at it's worst at night, where there was nothing for him to do. His mind would start spinning in the world of what if/s till the point that he felt it could explode with all the possibilities that he would imagine. Then as time went one, his imaginations began turning into nightmares, making his wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. All of this had taken his tole on him far worse than the war ever had. None of his shinobi had noticed, but the one who had noticed was his sensei. His sensei had advised that he should return to the village to visit them. This of course was the worst thing that he could have said to him. Of course that was the first thing Orochimaru had thought once his nightmares began, but he knew that that was impossible as a Hokage to do since he knew himself better than anyone else, and he also knew how he felt about those two kids; if he came back to them now, he would never be able to leave them again, leaving his troops without a true leader. Orochimaru had of course every intention of coming back to them just like he promised. Those kids had become far more than a motivation for him to come back, they had become a life source for him. He never wanted to go back to how his life was before he knew those kids, even in his own mind the happiest moments before them seemed to be all black and white.

When Jiraiya spoke of how he couldn't leave the three orphans, it had pissed Orochimaru off to no end. He hadn't let his teammate notice his anger, having years of experience at hiding emotions he could of course keep something like that. But Orochimaru had been in a similar situation but had been forced to live with it and Orochimaru was sure that if he could do it, then Jiraiya could figure out a way to suck it up and carry on, if for no one else than for them. For one day that they might be together again, if for only a second.

And Orochimaru was damn sure that should he be wounded or almost killed, no matter how bad it was, he would make it to those kids again. They deserved at least that much from him, they deserved one promise kept to them.

* * *

Pain. That was all he knew at the moment. Pain. His entire world seemed to love revolving around pain. His head felt like someone took his skull and his brain and placed them into a blender, he was sure that he couldn't even see straight for a good minute or so, and he was also sure that it took longer for him to see in color body on the other had was a different story entirely, he felt multiple bones broken, bruises all over his body, but despite all this, he knew that the men were gone and that Himawari was safe for another day. So, as hard as it was, he forced himself up and changed his clothes so Himawari wouldn't see the blood stains and washed his face of all the blood and dirt that caked it.

As he stared in the mirror, he could see that his hair was matted down, indicating that this was because there was blood soaked into his hair. He began washing the blood from his hair and grabbed a thing towel to begin drying it off, but as he removed the towel, was slightly surprised when he saw that his hair hadn't returned back to it's normal shape. His hair that used to love defying gravity by standing straight up in thick locks was now in a more droopy look, like it was like himself: tired. This was hard to notice if you didn't know what you were looking for however, but it was still enough to notice in Naruto's eyes. He shook his head from these thoughts as he looked into the mirror again to make sure that there wasn't anymore blood on his body, once he and went over to the kitchen. Once there, he shouted "NEE-CHAN'S THE BEST AND I SUCK A LOT! Now can you please come out Hima-chan, I can't find you ever!" He purposely shouted loud enough for Himawari to wake up from since he had no doubts that she had been asleep. He also closed his eyes so to keep Himawari thinking that that spot was her golden spot where he would never find her.

He heard scrambling, and soon enough he saw her blonde hair appear before him while she did a victory pose. "Haha You can't ever find me Nii-chan! You suck at this game! Now we shou- Wait, what's that on your arm?" She asked as she pointed to his arm. Naruto looked down to where she was pointing, and saw that he had a drop of blood running down the cut that he had on his arm that hadn't healed completely yet. He quickly wiped it away as he said "Oh that's nothing Nee-chan. Just a cut I got while I was looking for you." Naruto said, Himawari nodded her head then said "But we should get something for it." She started looking around for something they could use to bandage Naruto's cut. Though as she looked, she noticed that they didn't have anything they could use, so instead she grabbed a pair of her clothes that she never wore as they were too small for her and ripped a small part of it off. She walked back to her brother and carefully wrapped it around her brothers arm. Once wrapped around, she grabbed the two ends and made a small knot around it, locking it onto his arm while she placed her hand on it and said "Pain Pain go away." In a singing like tone. Naruto meanwhile was touched that his sister was going so far just to heal a small wound, she knew that they both healed from cuts like this. Noticing all of these actions she had done for him just strengthened his resolve to keep her hidden away so that she could stay safe and keep that smile he had grown to love over the years.

Naruto then noticed his sister bring her hand up to her mouth and yawn,which made Naruto notice how tired he himself was. "Let's go to bed Nee-chan." Naruto said as he walked to the bedroom. With his sister right behind him. They both laid on separate sides of the bed, and upon Himawari's head hitting the worn out pillow that was the only one adorning the bed, Naruto heard her slight snoring. Naruto however, couldn't find sleep that night as his mind wandered over to the fox that he had just met. He had no idea what it was or what it was doing in his body or how it even got there, all he knew was that he had let the beast free and as far as he knew he would keep it that way because even though the beast appeared to be angry, really angry as a matter of fact, Naruto could see something in it's eyes once the chains and pegs were let loose, that thing being a great amount of relief and happiness. Of course, he knew that the beast was rather happy at the prospect of killing him, Naruto saw the type of happiness that he himself felt when he woke up in the street and saw all the men who had attacked him were gone, thus leaving Himawari safe for another night. Despite these things being hidden by the amount of anger the beast presented towards Naruto, it was still enough to convince the boy that he had done the right thing and that chaining the beast down would only cause the beast to be even more angry at the human race than it already was, and if Naruto was correct, than the beast had already dealt with enough evil for far longer than he ever had.

* * *

The Next Night

"Please Please Please Nee-chan!" Naruto begged his sister, who continued to shake her head. "No, we play hide and seek too much. It's boring having to stay in the same place over and over." She complained while she made a pout and looked away from her brother. As she disagreed, Naruto continued to have his eyes switch from looking at her and then over to the window to watch for the men that were due to come after him. It was almost that time and like always Naruto suggested they play hide and seek, but tonight Himawari was adamantly against it, wanting to play something else. This was making Naruto all the more nervous since he knew if he didn't have Himawari in her usual spot by the time they came, they would take her as well and he couldn't bare the thought of seeing her in a state he had seen himself in many a time.

"Okay, Okay how about this Nee-chan, what game do you want to play?" Naruto asked, but his voice had a slight squeak to it since he saw a torch in the distance approaching them. Though the torch was coming towards them slowly, which Naruto was grateful for. He suspected they did this because they knew they had no reason to rush since Naruto always came out to greet them. "I want to play tick tack toe!" She said cheerfully. Naruto glanced again at the window and saw the torch inching it's way toward them. "Okay, Okay Nee-chan, how about this, we play rock, paper, scissors and if I win we play hide and seek and if you win we play tick tack toe. How does that sound?" Naruto asked, although he would admit he was saying all of this rather fast due to his anxiety growing and growing with every step he saw the torch move. Himawari put her finger up to her lips in a thinking pose, but to Naruto's mind it felt like he heard the door knocking every second that she spent thinking; it was only thanks to the torch that he saw still in the window that he stopped himself from saying anything. he looked to the window once more to see the torch was coming really close to them, this was their only chance. If Naruto won... no _when_ Naruto won, he would barely have enough time to get her to hide while he counted.

"Okay nii-chan, you got a deal. Ready?" She asked as she put her fist in her palm in a rock, paper, scissors fashion. Naruto did the same as quick as he could and then said "1..2..3.. Shoot!" Naruto prayed to every god that he had ever heard of, hoping with every fiber of his being that he won. As he swung his hand down, he was so nervous that he closed his eyes. All too soon, he felt his hand hit his palm and knew that it was time. He peeked his eyes open, and immediately felt more than a thousand different emotions being swirling inside of him like a hurricane. And none of them were good.

He had chosen Rock.

She had chosen paper.

* * *

 **DUN DUN DUHHH! As always I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter, favorite and review. I'll try to get the new chapter out as soon as I can.**

 **-TheDamocles**


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